Undas is the season for spaghetti and barbeque with your loved ones… who have passed—which every born and raised Filipino knows.
Filipino-American songstress Bella Poarch’s debut album, “Picnic at the Cemetery,” gives a look into her lore—molded by the Filipino experience.
The album title itself is a callback to her own family’s celebrations of All Saints’ Day, a yearly occasion widely observed among Filipinos on November 1, Bella said.
The artist drew inspiration from her family’s celebration of their loved ones’ memories while celebrating their own life together.
During her appearance at the VMAs’ “Entertainment Tonight,” she opened up about the personal meaning of this project, discussing her appreciation for the culture she grew up in.
On Instagram, alongside a post of the album art, she said, “... by the end of making this album, I realized that I was healing the younger version of myself. I now sit here with my buried memories & emotions & celebrate life because the experiences I went through made me who I am today.”
“Picnic at the Cemetery” was released September 18.
Bella’s previous hit singles include “Build a Bitch” (2021), criticizing the typical man’s inclination to treat dating like going to a Build-A-Bear Workshop to pick out his preferred “parts”—but for an actual human partner.
Meanwhile, in “Living Hell,” Bella sings about making her (hypothetical) man’s life hell as a woman who deploys emotional detachment (“ghosting”) in the face of genuine affection due to unaddressed trauma and internal associations of love with violence and control.
