“I’m wondering if our Filipino peeps are backing [P-Lo] here in the 619.”

“Rapper P-Lo’s style of music is 100 percent ‘Bay Area’ — the type of music you can dance to, whether it’s with a partner or by yourself, and just good vibing,” said Vanessa Wong, a 23-year-old hip-hop head from San Diego.

“I feel like what people know the Bay for, is like funk, turnt, hype shit and just this real high-energy music,” P-Lo said in a XXL interview.

P-Lo is a hip-hop artist, song writer, and producer from Pinole, a city that’s about 20 miles north of San Francisco. He’s known as Paolo Rodriguez to his Filipino parents and some of his friends from Heartbreak Gang, or HBK — a Bay Area music and arts collective that he co-founded with rapper IAMSU!

When he played point guard for the Contra Costa College basketball team, while simultaneously making beats for his HBK pares (Tagalog for buddies) and working a day job, it was difficult for some of his people to accept his immersion into the hip-hop industry.

“There was always times where people doubt, you know what I’m saying? But I figured they were more scared for themselves, than they were for me,” P-Lo said in a dailymotion interview, “I never really tripped about people doubting me.”

In 2013, the young rapper was at a crossroads. “I was working at this after school program, and I had been working there for like a week,” he said to XXL. “Then one day I had to fly to L.A.... When your friend gets you a job, you’re not supposed to take days off, but I had to leave, I had to go to L.A. So once I quit my job, and made the decision. I was like, ‘Alright, I’ll fully go in.’ I had to fly to L.A. to go work with the Wiz again, and I was like, ‘Alright, fuck it, this is the rest of my life.’”

P-Lo produced the “Bout Me” jam by Wiz Khalifa, featuring Problem and his partner IAMSU!. Four years later he collabed with E-40, one of the OGs of the Bay Area hip-hop movement, that took their “510 and 707 slaps” hella mainstream in the ’00s — on the hyphy-esque “Put Me On Somethin.’”

“What I think is cool,” recalls P-Lo fan Wong, “is that personally I don’t think any song of P-Lo is the same in style as another. He’s always switching it up.”

Wong watched P-Lo perform in Oakland, Santa Ana, and San Diego. “During the concert he brought me up on stage and performed 'Make It Last,' which gave me butterflies in my stomach,” she continued. “I was living the dream: one of my favorite artists bringing me on stage and then singing to me and it was crazy. Then after the concert, I got to talk to him some more, and he was really kind and down to earth.”

Bhoy, an old-school San Diego hip-hop head, first heard his “kababayan” (fellow Filipino) on “Light This Bitch Up” featuring G-Eazy and HBK Gang-mate Jay Ant.

“Dude’s hella tight, bro,” he said. “I’m wondering if our Filipino peeps are backing dude here in the 619. I’m sure our pinoys and pinays (Filipinos and Filipinas) are behind him. Back in the ’80s-’90s, our peeps said our hip-hop endeavors were “hobbies” and not to be taken seriously ‘cuz we were pressured to finish college. Then there was that crab effect when we pulled one another down. But that’s in all cultures. It was only when someone of Filipino heritage blew up big to other races, when our peeps rode the coattails. It seems different nowadays, which is hecka dope.”

“I think we’re (the Bay Area) able to represent the future of the world,” P-Lo said to XXL, “where everyone co-exists and people are able to create great things together, from all walks of life, no matter where you came from and what you look like or whoever you are, and I think that’s what we want to represent.”

At press time, the status of P-Lo’s March 20 spring break concert at Papas & Beer in Rosarito was unconfirmed.