A La Una is the latest music project by Lex Junior and Romeo Candido, formerly known as DATU. While DATU was focused on contemporizing traditional Filipino music, A La Una sets its sights on moving past their cultural foundation to explore new musical landscapes, tempos, stories and textures. More than just a rebrand, Lex Junior and Romeo Candido are embarking on a new creative venture that will reach outside of the Filipino community to create a new global sound, access new audiences, and tell a different story.
Collaborating for over a decade, Lex Junior and Romeo Candido have found success in the different areas of the music industry together and apart. Recently, Lex Junior has become a go to composer collaborating with Just John, Ralph, Maylee Todd, Jessie Reyes and been featured on commercials like Apple, Crown Royal, Google and Champion. His music has been placed in Hollywood trailers and television series as well as commercial campaigns. Romeo has found success as a composer for the critically acclaimed stage musical Prison Dancer and as the creator / composer for the upcoming CBC musical series Topline.
As a unit, Lex Junior and Romeo Candido are known as the godfathers of contemporary Filipino music, ushering traditional FIlipino music into the modern world by integrating indigenous Kulintang music with electronic, hip hop and modern sounds. As DATU their music was featured in television shows, ad campaigns, and was considered one of the top 100 Canadian songs in 2017 by Wavelengths music. Their videos have accumulated over a million views online and their live performances were highlights in musical festivals ranging from NXNE to Summerworks. In changing their name from DATU Lex says “DATU is a patriarchal term that means tribal chieftain. In our efforts to dismantle the patriarchy we wanted to let go of the name and what it represents.” Romeo says “A La Una means ‘back at one’, and with the current state of the world, there is a need to renew and to begin again. We wanted to make sure that our band and everything it stands moves with the times and helps us evolve as people.”
THE TRANSCENDANCE TO A LA UNA
“Why the change? We all need to change and as an artistic unit DATU has gone through many challenges in the past year. 2020 taught us to search within, and even question some of our cultural foundations.” Lex Junior says. Romeo continues “It is obvious that a new age is upon us, where institu
