Manila Community Radio: Representation Through Empowerment
In search of a new radio station? Want to discover local music and artists? Manila Community Radio (MCR) is celebrating its first anniversary. First surfacing the airwaves on July 8, 2020; they have aired almost 1,000+ hours and organized over 650+ shows from more than 300+ hosts. MCR is an independent and not-for-profit radio platform that aims to push for diversity, inclusiveness, and representation of Filipino talent through DJ mixes, podcasts, talk shows, and more.
MCR was founded by members of BuwanBuwan Collective, Ikigai Radio, Transit Records, and UNKNWN who came together with the intent of serving a platform for local and international artists to share their works with the community. Representing and acting as a vessel for voices to be heard. Artists such as Duality, Butta B, Doze, dot.jaime, Fern, similarobjects and Papa Jawnz have been highlighted in the past.
Those behind Manila Community Radio envision the project to be complementary to the local independent music ecosystem. MCR is an open, inclusive, creative, and safe space for broadcasters to express and convey themselves. Promoting collaboration between various Filipino artists, the MCR team enable the local music community to explore new sounds and ideas and come together in order to break away from conventional radio platform politics.
As a platform with the promotion of underrepresented communities to be recognized in mind, MCR dedicated the month of June to promote Pride Month launching a special program and welcoming LGBTQIA+ broadcasters to showcase their talent on the airwaves. Pride Month in MCR was a time for anyone and everyone to gather and enjoy shows catered by the LGBTQIA+ community. Ever since MCR launched its platform, it has served as a safe space for everyone from any form of hate, racism, sexism, violence, queer, and transphobia. No matter your orientation or self-identification, expect that you will feel welcome and safe in the community.
Manila Community Radio continues to expand its platform by introducing “visual shows” with video to be broadcasted alongside showcased audio. If you are a fan of music and would like to discover the local scene and various artists that represent it, we recommend looking back at past shows MCR has aired. Their archives can be accessed on their Mixcloud account. New content is posted on their recently launched YouTube channel and Instagram account.