Roslynn Alba Cobarrubias, a media entrepreneur, radio DJ and music promoter who advocated for Filipino American artists and was instrumental in rising the MySpace Music platform, died Sunday night, based on members of the family.
Cobarrubias died in her hometown of Walnut, based on the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s workplace, which has but to find out a reason behind loss of life pending additional exams. She was 43.
“She was passionate and devoted to the Filipino American neighborhood worldwide, and would spend each her private {and professional} life celebrating and uplifting it wherever she may,” her household stated in an announcement shared with The Instances. “She performed a pivotal function in collaborations between acclaimed worldwide artists and rising Filipino expertise, serving to information them into the music business highlight.”
Cobarrubias was born March 12, 1980, at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Middle in Los Angeles. Whereas rising up in Walnut within the east San Gabriel Valley — a brief drive from the music studios and venues of central L.A. — she developed a love for music. In elementary faculty, she performed her favourite songs for classmates, calling herself “the lunchtime DJ,” she recalled throughout a TEDx speak in 2017.
Later, she buzzed between report shops and hip-hop golf equipment, discovering new artists and their music and enjoying them for mates at events. She was dedicated to the music channels that dominated TV within the Nineties and 2000s, together with VH1 and MTV. Her dream was to turn out to be a video jockey, internet hosting the reveals she’d religiously watch and touring the world to advertise new music and interview her favourite artists.
However her household had different plans. Feeling the strain as a toddler of immigrants from the Philippines, Cobarrubias enrolled in 1999 at UC Irvine with plans to check political science and turn out to be a lawyer.
Nonetheless, she held onto her dream job.
With out telling her household, Cobarrubias drove to Hollywood for a video jockey audition whereas nonetheless a freshman in school. She stood in line for 3 hours earlier than finally touchdown a spot as a finalist.
“And on the final casting agent’s workplace, she checked out me and he or she stated, ‘You’re too brief. What are you gonna do, maintain the microphone over your head? You’ll by no means be on tv; it is best to strive radio,’” Cobarrubias recalled of the agent’s suggestion that she as a substitute be a radio DJ.
Crushed, she hopped again in her automobile and whereas sitting in site visitors on the ten Freeway contemplated the agent’s phrases.
“I assumed, OK, I’m simply gonna return to UCI, research political science, be a lawyer my mother from the Philippines might be proud to inform her brothers and sisters about. Coming from a third-world nation, you need a lawyer, not a DJ in your loved ones,” she stated.
However finally, Cobarrubias took the agent’s recommendation to coronary heart. She began working at KSAK-FM 90.1, a station based mostly out of Mt. San Antonio School in Walnut. Quickly after, she transferred to the neighborhood school from UCI and began a hip-hop present, Third Ground Radio. There, she interviewed acts who influenced her, equivalent to A Tribe Known as Quest and Talib Kweli.
As her present’s reputation grew, she began selling it and different artists on the then-new social media website MySpace.
After graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a bachelor’s diploma in communications, she caught the eye of MySpace co-founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, whom she met by way of a colleague, Cobarrubias stated in a weblog put up. DeWolfe and Anderson needed to develop the location as a web-based music platform, filling a void left by file-sharing website Napster, which had dissolved a number of years earlier.
Cobarrubias finally grew to become a advertising and marketing head and led artist relations, rising the MySpace Music platform and making it simpler for artists to share music and join with followers on the location — a novel thought on the time. The music function grew to become a staple on the location as customers delighted in customizing their profiles, which included compiling playlists of their favourite music. Main artists equivalent to as Sean Kingston, Adele and Calvin Harris owed the launch of their careers to MySpace.
“The folks that basically launched MySpace had been the … artists,” Cobarrubias advised iHeart Media podcast “Major Accounts: The Story of MySpace” earlier this yr. “You begin with the artists; they carry their fan bases. You begin with the DJs; they carry their fan bases. The best way we created was for creators.”
Whereas selling the work of high-profile artists equivalent to Drake and Justin Timberlake, Cobarrubias additionally promoted up-and-coming Filipino American artists throughout her work with Philippines-based media large ABS-CBN and thru her advertising and marketing model, 1587. In response to her household, the corporate’s identify stems from the yr a Spanish galleon with Filipino crewmembers arrived in Morro Bay — broadly accepted by historians as the primary Filipinos, and Asians, to set foot on what’s now the continental U.S.
Cobarrubias’ tasks stretched past Los Angeles and music. She helped construct basketball courts with the Clippers and the Manny Pacquiao Basis all through the Philippines, together with in her household’s ancestral dwelling, Olongapo.
“I really like our 1587 household a lot as a result of not solely will we push one another within the leisure and music business — however we always remind one another how we have now to at all times give again and transfer in mission and objective,” she wrote in a social media put up. “We labored onerous to be blessed with these alternatives by the universe and God that generally it appears like a dream.”
Cobarrubias additionally sponsored Filipino American heritage nights at Clippers, Dodgers and Kings video games. Her firm promoted Filipino American acts on the occasions, together with rappers P-Lo and Guapdad 4000, Energy 106 radio DJ E-Man, Actual 92.3 DJ Nico Blitz, in addition to Saweetie and EZ Mil, each of whom threw first pitches at Dodger video games within the final two seasons.
Oakland rapper P-Lo and L.A.-based indie artist Yeek had been amongst those that expressed condolences Tuesday as information of Cobarrubias’ loss of life unfold on-line. Each shared an outdated picture of them posing with Cobarrubias and different Filipino artists.
“RIP Tita Ros,” P-Lo stated in his Instagram story.
“Thanks for at all times believing in me. You had been such an impactful & influential individual in our neighborhood,” stated Yeek.
Filipino American YouTube singer AJ Rafael shared a musical tribute to Cobarrubias, “to convey consolation by way of music, one thing she liked so dearly.” He added: “You really cared for me as an individual and never simply an artist.”
Notable Filipino American figures exterior the music business additionally mourned Cobarrubias’ loss of life. Writer and professor Anthony Christian Ocampo wrote in a tweet that he was “in full disbelief,” calling Cobarrubias “an iconic determine within the Filipino American neighborhood.”
Jason Lustina, who’s behind the favored Instagram account SoCalFilipinos, stated Cobarrubias was among the many first supporters of his platform. “The neighborhood is mourning your loss however you could have left your mark and can at all times be remembered,” he wrote.
Alba Legacy, a clothes model based by Cobarrubias’ cousin, superstar dressmaker Jhoanna Alba, stated in an announcement on Instagram, “Ros made an immense impression in our neighborhood and worldwide. She liked intensely whereas enduring unfair struggling. Her presence in our household is irreplaceable, and her absence is unimaginable.”
Black Eyed Peas member apl.de.ap praised Cobarrubias as a humble advocate all through his profession. On Wednesday, he was struggling to search out images of her.
“And that’s as a result of Ros was at all times there — round — however nearly by no means in entrance of the digital camera,” he stated in an announcement shared on his Instagram account.
Apl.de.ap, who was born Allan Pineda Lindo Jr., credited his well-documented love for Honda Civics to Cobarrubias, who would drive him and bandmate will.i.am, after they had been each nonetheless younger up-and-comers, round L.A. in her personal Civic.
He credited her with boosting his group’s profession throughout her time at MySpace.
“I by no means gave her the flowers she deserved for placing us on MySpace when it was at its peak and helped propel us,” he stated. “[Black Eyed Peas] is made up of greater than the fellows you see onstage, and it’s folks like Roslynn who made this all attainable.”
In 2016, he took Cobarrubias and different Filipino American leisure figures, together with comic Jo Koy, on a visit to the Philippines to get in contact with their tradition.
“It did one thing for her that I had at all times hoped,” apl.de.ap stated, “and from that journey on she spent a substantial quantity of her time giving again and wielding her energy to assist our neighborhood develop.”
Cobarrubias is survived by her mom, Maria Evelyn Alba; three sisters, Rheeza Alba Cobarrubias McMillan, Rachelle Alba Cobarrubias and Chrystal Alba Fujimoto; and a number of other nieces and nephews, whom her household described as “the loves of her life.”
Instances Assistant Editor Ada Tseng contributed to this report.
