DJ Love (Sherwin Tuna) drops incendiary ‘BOMB TECH 49’


Filipino ‘Budots’ pioneer DJ and producer DJ Love (Sherwin Tuna) returns with ‘Bomb Tech 49’ (31st July), lifted from the upcoming debut album ‘Budots World (Reloaded)’ released 7th August through Eastern Margins.

“Bomb Tech 49 is my attempt at new bomb tech beats. I was just trying to produce fluidly and then the leads came out after a long time of exploring and experimenting to find the right sounds. It was like it was formed and ripened through my imagination. effortlessly It just happened. after awhile i ended up losing amor for the song. But some people liked this music, so I thought I’d release it anyways.”

DJ Love (Sherwin Tuna) says

His previous single ‘Sabak Sa DJ Basuri’ featured the Camus Girls – the community initiative he built in Davao City that encourages young girls to learn empowerment and community through dancing to budots. As the video says, the Camus Girls are about “having fun in true Filipino spirit”.

Sherwin Calumpang Tuna, professionally known as DJ Love, is a trailblazing Filipino music producer from Davao City. Globally renowned for cultivating the electronic dance sound ‘Budots’ native to the Filipino archipelago’s region, DJ Love co-founded the Camusboyz budots dance group in 2004 which helped catapult the genre’s exponential movement in the early 2000s.

His productions have been showcased on national television in the Philippines as well as broadcasted to his global following of 180k+ YouTube subscribers. Recent highlights include being featured on his debut Boiler Room in 2023 as part of the Manila Community Radio broadcast, celebrating an exploration of Filipino maximalism through a diverse range of local talent.

Budots originated in the southern part of the Philippines in the 2010s. The name ‘Budots’ is derived from a Bisaya slang word meaning “slacker”. Originally burdened with derogatory connotations around juvenile delinquency, it was DJ Love who ‘shifted the definition of Budots from simply bumming around to an art form of expression’ (Mixmag, 2020).

Nowadays, Budots’ reputation spreads far beyond the Philippines. Its repetitive yet attention-grabbing nature has made budots ubiquitous on short form video platforms, its sound scoring countless TikTok, Douyins and YouTube videos. DJ Love remains at the centre of this movement: classic tracks of his such as TiwTiw have racked up 50,000 creations on TikTok alone, whilst his set at the now legendary Manila Community Radio Boiler Room of 2023 is the most viewed Boiler Room from the Philippines.

But that’s just the start for DJ Love. After decades in the game, DJ Love is constantly innovating and progressing the culture. He’s overseen the formation of new mutations and offshoots of Budots, such as Bomb-Tek, a harder, more techno-oriented version of Budots, and has ushered through a new generation of Filipino producers, as exhibited in his recent compilation for Manila Community Radio. He will also be making his UK debut this September at the Margins United festival at Earth Hackney, the first East and South East Asian oriented music festival in the UK, led by Eastern Margins.