When the City Becomes the Stage
GENERAL SANTOS CITY - One of the clearest examples came during MusikaTuna: GAHUM Music & Arts Fest in September, when homegrown performers filled the City Hall Drive at Plaza Heneral Santos with live music. The program brought together acts including Kacessionistas, Kamoteng Bakal, Kuerdas, Nasneg, and Muzik Alchemy, while another September 4 program featured performers such as Kaces Acoustic, Lucky Nicole, Stephen JC, and Mulan Blues. The events show that independent and homegrown musicians do not always need a conventional concert venue to connect with listeners. Streets, plazas, festivals, and community celebrations can become working spaces where local performers build audiences one song at a time.
Independent Does Not Mean Working Alone
Music is only one part of the city’s creative picture. In September, the Dadiangas Writers Society launched The Faces of Healing, an anthology accompanied by independently produced zines exploring subjects such as healing, memory, grief, and personal experiences. The project included individual works combining poetry, photography, collage, illustration, and other forms of expression, showing how GenSan creatives can publish and circulate work outside conventional publishing routes. Visual artists are also contributing to the city’s identity through murals, lettering, calligraphy, paintings, and mixed-media pieces. Together, these examples reveal a creative community that is experimenting with different formats rather than relying on one definition of what an artist can be.
More Doors Are Opening for Homegrown Talent
The growing number of platforms matters because independent artists need places where their work can actually meet an audience. General Santos City’s 2026 festival plans included dedicated opportunities for local performers, including a Gensan local artist in the Tuna Music Festival, while private spaces such as Veranza have also invited buskers to perform and potentially earn through their talent. The city’s upcoming Hiraya Music Festival likewise places General Santos’ homegrown music scene within a larger festival setting. These developments do not guarantee success for every creative, but they do show something valuable: artists in GenSan have more visible pathways to perform, publish, exhibit, collaborate, and let audiences discover what they can create.
