Yeng: No more compromises

Manila, Philippines - It took Yeng Constantino four years to return to the concert stage. Her last solo concert came almost immediately after emerging as the winner of the first-ever Pinoy Dream Academy edition in late 2006.

She became the toast of the town, hailed not just a talented performer, but also a very promising songwriter who had a pulse on the masses.

It will be recalled that her debut album Salamat, seven songs of which were original compositions of hers, reached a 3x Platinum Record after only a couple of months after its release. One of the massive hits that came out of Salamat was Hawak Kamay, which she penned when she was only 14 years old.

But questions swirled, as industry critics and watchers wondered whether she was heaven-sent to the recording industry or simply a one-hit-wonder?

Yeng, now 22, admits that all these took a toll on her creativity, inevitably falling prey to a writer’s block. While she was performing in ASAP weekly, in reality, she feared doing a concert again. 

“I was scared of having a concert because the market might not want it anymore. For the longest time, I had that fear,” she shares.

But she is thankful that she had a support system that encouraged her to trust her sound and to sustain the passion for what she has always wanted to do, which is singing, performing and writing songs.

How did she finally overcome it? “First, I overcame it through acceptance. I accepted the fact that I have over-compromised and over-analyzed what my music should be. Sobrang napwersa ako kung ano kaya ang gusto ng tao. I was always thinking if the fans would like it or not.”

She now admits that her second album Journey (2008) was prematurely done. “I know my ‘reinvention’ was rushed. It was not a natural process. I forced myself to mature. I had to accept the fact that it was not okay. I had to go back to the start and asked myself, why am I doing this? It’s because I just want to write. I believe this is my function, my role, my destiny: I will write, I will write.”

Along with the acceptance came the realization that she had enough of making compromises. And no more lingering in the past for this lady rocker, nor attempts to recapture the magic of her first outing. “I thought I could no longer write — ever! The Yeng who wrote the songs on the first album was naïve and young. But I cannot forever live on the ghost of my first album because I’ll never be able to move on.”

When she was working on her third studio album, Lapit, Yeng happily got her groove back.

“For the third album wherein I worked with Raimund Marasigan of Sandwich, yun na, I felt that everything was coming into place. Nag-No. 1 sa MYX yung first single ko, then second single ko… Then I produced three music videos. Then, I won six major awards from MYX. I feel so blessed, dati pinipilit ko, di nangyayari, pero nung hindi na, saka s’ya dumating,” she says.

That’s why her sophomore solo concert Rakenroll Jamming with Yeng Constantino at Aliw Theater on Aug. 5 will be in a way celebratory in nature. Her repertoire includes originals, new singles, plus songs of her musical idols. Guest artists are her Music Uplate co-host Tutti Caringal, Raimund Marasigan, Gloc-9 and Sam Milby. Coinciding with her concert is the launch of her new live album titled Yeng Versions Live by Star Records.

And if there’s one thing that she is most grateful of is that, despite what she went through as an artist, she has been able to last for five years now in the industry. “Basically, me staying in the business for five years, that’s my biggest achievement. Other artists, they’ve done everything, they compromised their music, followed trends and still disappeared from the scene.”

Yet, she wouldn’t trade her experience for anything. “I underwent it all, the hardships, the compromises… There was even a time I got confused — should I be a diva since that was what the market wanted? Or should I insist on my music? But after all that confusion, you try to find who you are, your core, and that’s what I did.”

(For details, log on to yengconstantinorocks.com.)