Hardware Syndrome and the merging of rap with Pinoy rock This album helped tag Magalona as one of the most politically conscious voices of his generation. With tracks addressing the various cultural and social problems that plagued his country such as drug addiction in "Mga Praning" (Paranoids), political instability in "Halalan" (Elections) as well as the detrimental effects of a colonial mentality in "Tayo'y Mga Pinoy" (We Are Filipinos), the record's complexity and conscious message quickly earned it its classic status and became the standard by which future albums of the genre were to be compared. In 1992, Francis Magalona released Rap Is FrancisM (1992). It also marked the birth of Makabayang (nationalistic) rap in Filipino hip hop. With tracks that featured politically conscious and thought-provoking rhymes in both English and Tagalog, Yo! was a big success and helped catapult Filipino hip hop from underground to mainstream status. Yo! included several popular singles such as " Mga Kababayan" (Fellow Countrymen), "Gotta Let 'Cha Know", "Cold Summer Nights", and a duet with Pia Arroyo "Loving You" as the only song that Pia recorded. In 1990, he released the album Yo!, the first commercially released Filipino rap album. Music career Filipino hip hop and nationalistic rap (Frank) (1987), Saab (1988), Elmo (1994), Arkin and Clara Magalona, who entered showbiz to follow their father's footsteps. The couple had eight children, two of whom were Magalona's stepchildren: Unna, Nicolo, and television personalities Maxene (Max) (1986), Francis Jr. Magalona was introduced by co-actor Richard Gomez to Pia Arroyo at a party in a disco owned by film director Ishmael Bernal, and the couple got married in 1985. He was the resident DJ/rapper in the IBC-13 variety show Loveli'Ness. He was cast in several Filipino movies including Bagets 2. Magalona started out as a breakdancer in the 1980s. He graduated from high school at the Don Bosco Technical College in Mandaluyong from 1978 to 1981 and studied at the San Beda College in Manila from 1981 to 1984. Magalona, was a politician and served as a Senator of the Philippines from 1946 to 1949 and from 1949 to 1955. Magalona was the eighth of the nine children of actors Pancho Magalona and Tita Duran, popular film stars of the 1940s and 1950s.