Many homegrown music artists have memorable hits, high sales, and record-breaking numbers to their names, but only a few can be considered as being truly impactful to Filipino culture as a whole.
Moira Dela Torre — through emotional and cathartic songs like “Tagpuan” (Meeting Place), “Ikaw At Ako” (You And I), “Paubaya” (Let It Go), “Babalik Sa ‘Yo” (Return To You), and many more that have induced tears, given comfort, and moved listeners — has been largely instrumental in redefining hugot and turning it into its own genre within Filipino pop music.
Because of this, Dela Torre has been selected by Billboard Philippines to receive the Hitmaker Award at the first ever Billboard Philippines Women In Music event this month.
The prolific singer-songwriter, whose professional career started when she joined the first season of The Voice of the Philippines in 2013, released her debut EP Moira under Ivory Music the following year. Since then, she has released three studio albums, including her eight-times-Platinum selling debut Malaya (2018) and the Platinum selling Patawad (2020), the latter of which features collaborations with Ben&Ben and I Belong To The Zoo.
She has also released and dozens of successful singles, including contributions to the soundtracks of such films as Camp Sawi, Love You To The Stars And Back, Meet Me In St. Gallen, Unbreak My Heart, and more. The immense popularity of her hugot songs has led to her becoming the Philippines’ most streamed Filipina artist for seven consecutive years, and at present, she has 3.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify.
“Whether it’s music I create or consume, it has brought me so much healing,” says Dela Torre in an exclusive interview with Billboard Philippines. “So, it will always be an honor and a privilege knowing that the words I wrote down in my notebook during days I needed an outlet have brought comfort to people’s lives.”