Ibarra was born in the Philippines. As a child living in Tacloban, she was inspired by a television performance by Filipino rapper Francis Magalona. Her family immigrated to San Lorenzo, California and she was raised in the Bay Area. She attended the University of California, Davis and performed with spoken word collective, SickSpits.
Music career
Ibarra released her Lost In Translation mixtape, hosted by DJ Kay Slay, on December 12, 2012. The mixtape debuted that evening on Eminem's Shade45 channel on Sirius XM Radio, where she was interviewed live by DJ Kay Slay. On November 5, 2015, she officially signed to independent record label, Beatrock Music, and announced that she would release her full-length debut album with them in 2016. She began recording the album with Fatgums in Inglewood, California in March 2016. On October 3, 2017, she released her album “Circa 1991” - where she documents social justice issues like immigration and trauma. In January 2018, Ruby was featured in a national MasterCardTV commercial with singer SZA and other breakout artists to promote the Start Something Priceless campaign. In just 2018 alone, Ruby Ibarra has done 6 projects with The Filipino Channel: Cinematografo: Performance and Music Licensing- Discovering Routes: Music Licensing- Kasayahan Festival in Daly City: Performance- 24x24: Feature not yet released- Balitang America: Jocelyn Enriquez x Ruby Ibarra Feature- Gifts of Love: Performance for ABS CBN Foundation. In addition to Ruby’s individual platforms, she has team support from the following platforms to distribute her content: Myx TV and DASH Radio. Dash Radio also partnered with General Motors last year to have the channel built into one million of its car models as a part of the podcast application. Ruby has a combined presence of over 3 million views on YouTube. Ruby Ibarra’s last documentary was featured in multiple countries & film festivals including Guam, Toronto, & San Francisco + Boston in the United States. Ruby Ibarra is one of a few Filipino artists from the USA that have gained traction among Filipinos from around world, as reflected by her weekly bookings to perform all around the world, including next week’s Malisimbo music festival in the Philippines. Recent partnerships & features include the following corporations:
