MYMP

One of the favorite acoustic acts in the country today is Make Your Momma Proud also known as M.Y.M.P. The band plays smooth soothing renditions that would surely heighten your appetite for good acoustic music. M.Y.M.P. had come a long way from a 4 piece all guy rock band to a show band to a trio which opened their doors to having a debut album.

They had their biggest break when Raymond Ryan, the station manager of iFM watched their gig and met up with a producer to produce their debut album, Soulful Acoustic which is now a Certified Platinum Record. Ivory records then became their recording company. M.Y.M.P.’s debut album was released on Ivory music and video’s 20th anniversary. M.Y.M.P. did make us fall in love with their debut carrier single “A Little Bit” which bagged the People’s Choice “Favorite Song” Award in Awit Awards last 2004.

The trio did click but MYMP became a duo when one of their members decided to leave the group in February 2004 yet this did not stop them from sharing their honest music. They surely enhanced the sound of MYMP as they go beyond soulful and acoustic music. The edge of M.Y.M.P. from others who joined the acoustic movement is their passion to create music, which is audible and high quality and the honesty in every performance.

Other than that, they can actually perform solo. Juris with her effortless soprano voice makes it all and Chin on guitars, you’ll never ask for anything else except to crave for more from this band.

Juris has the taste for Rn’B and Pop, the likes of Alicia Keys, Destiny’s Child, Avril Lavigne, and Patti Austin. While Chin goes for blue-based rock like Eric Clapton’s kind of music and Sting. M.Y.M.P. has turned their world upside down when they decided to choose join the music industry.

Juris Fernandez should have been in the medical field following her mother’s footsteps after earning a degree in Psychology and Chin Alcantara on Communication Arts while Andrew and John had chosen this path while supporting their families.

History

Jacques “Chin” Alcantara former Claretian founded the band back in late 1996. It was Chin’s elder brother Julius who gave the band its name. Chin’s mother, Dr. Stella Lopez-Alcantara, had died of complications from breast cancer when he was 17.

Back when it was originally formed, Make Your Momma Proud was a four-man rock band, whose arsenal included Jimi Hendrix, The Doors and, as Alcantara adds, a little Mr. Big. He was still a student at Miriam College then, taking up Communication Arts, major in Advertising. “My mom played the piano but she didn’t get to see me play professionally—she did get to see me start out,” Alcantara said. In the year after his mother died, Alcantara took up the guitar and, in his words, “really got obsessed with it and that’s when I knew what I wanted to be, a musician.” Alcantara was enjoined by his father to attend classical guitar tutoring, but stopped after a month. So Alcantara taught himself how to play.

As a college band, MYMP appeared in college fairs and shows, but as they became more earnest in their intent to pursue music as a career, they encountered difficulty in lining up gigs due to their repertoire. MYMP added a keyboard player and began working on a more pop sound, completing the transformation with the addition of a female vocalist in 2000, Marifil Niña Girado, better known today as R&B singer Nina Girado after leaving the band to go solo. MYMP then industriously performed in bars, clubs and shows for years, building an identity.

In 2001, Alcantara handed an audition for a new female lead, and the group found Julie Iris “Juris” Fernandez. Originally from Davao, Fernandez explains she didn’t grow up exposed to music on a regular basis. Like Alcantara, Fernandez did not study music formally for long, eschewing the training to learn on her own. After graduating from Miriam, Fernandez was studying at the Ateneo, working towards completing her pre-med requirements when she decided that, like Alcantara, she wanted to immerse herself in music. After singing with Jimmy Bondoc, she fatefully auditioned for MYMP.

It was the trio of Alcantara, Fernandez and percussionist Mike Manahan that established the beachhead for MYMP’s frontal assault on the sales and radio charts.

Their career started when Raymond Ryan, the station manager of iFM watched their gig. Ryan met with a producer to produce their debut album, Soulful Acoustic. Ivory Records then became their recording company. MYMP’s debut album was released on Ivory Music and Video’s 20th anniversary. MYMP became famous with their hit songs “A Little Bit” which bagged the People’s Choice “Favorite Song” Award in Awit Awards last 2004.

The trio did click but MYMP became a duo when one of their members decided to leave the group. Manahan left the band in 2004 due to what Alcantara called “professional differences” as well as fallout from Manahan’s breakup with Fernandez, the two were in a relationship for a while. Yet, this did not stop them MYMP from sharing their music.

The duo set-up did great and as they enjoy their ride in the Philippine music scene, a new and improved MYMP had emerged, a quartet together with Andrew and John as bassist and kahonista. Beyond Acousticand Versions, 12-track albums, were declared Certified Gold Record after less than a month.

Now backed by keyboardist Edward Jimenez, percussionist Dexter John Angeles and bassist Aemil Rivas, MYMP embarks on its most ambitious career step yet, a summer tour of the US West and East coasts, a development that excites Alcantara and Fernandez immensely. “It was a dream we were thinking of fulfilling maybe five years from now,”