Known for her tribal and nature-oriented music, Maan Chua is one of Mindanao’s homegrown talents who also made a name in the national music scene.

She is a full-time wife and mother of two, yet she finds time to embrace her craft.

Maan began her interest in music when she was in 6th grade, owing it to a neighbor whose guitar skills amused her. She borrowed her guitar — plucked and strummed and hummed and after a month, her intimacy with the strings blossomed into a love affair.

She began to participate in school events, competitions, and plays as a guitar-wielding artist.

“I actually started songwriting pretty late,” Maan said. “I started composing around first year or second year college.”

She was then recruited by a folk-rock, acoustic band named Mebuyan. It was her days with the all-women group that Maan began to write music that she is known for today.

The inspiration for her music is found in the simplest things in life. The nature that she encircles herself around is what gives her that earthly feel to her music.

“I find joy in the rising sun. I find joy in the full moon. I find joy in a rainbow,” she said.

The simple things in life and nature are what give her happiness, contentment, and inspiration.

Maan has slowly built her recognition for over 10 years by entering various competitions and performing in different places almost every night. Last 2003 Maan and Mebuyan toured 3 cities in India to perform their music for the Asian Women Festival, all funded by the National Commission for Culture and Arts (NCCA).

She won first place at the Global Cooling: Mothers for Peace Sing-out and Songwriting for the song “Dahon, Puno, Ugat, Lupa”, and best interpreter for the same competition. She also won Best Solo Artist at the Musika del Sur’s annual 2007 Music Awards.

Recently, she was declared Grand Champion at the Kadayawan Festival’s Tunog Mindanao World Music Competition. This year she is tasked to write a song for the Palarong Pambansa 2015.

Maan lives a simple life. In between her busy schedule that includes frequent visits to other places in Mindanao, she still finds time to take care of her two sons, Kubing and Kunta. She even takes time to shop at Bangkerohan for groceries. Most of the time, she brings her two sons to school and picks them back for home.

She cooks, she said, and although she has a car, she doesn’t like to drive. She prefers to take the jeep, ride the tricycle, and even walk if she feels like it.

In fact, Maan loves nature so much that she travels frequently. Back in college, Maan and two of her friends travelled all the way to Siargo from Davao purely through hitchhiking. It was a 15-hour trip consisting of riding on trucks, trailers, private vehicles, and even trucks with animals and manure on it. They spent less than 100 pesos that whole trip. Some of the other places that she has visited are Iligan, Dumaguete, Batangas, Baguio, and even provinces and cities in China.

Currently, Maan has two self-produced and self-released albums – Happy Thoughts and Sinag. She is currently working on her third untitled album that she plans to release soon.

Even though Maan has achieved so much already, she has never failed to exhibit a quality lacking in today’s society and people – Simplicity. Living in an ostentatious and gaudy world makes people greedy and envious of each other. It’s how wars are started and conflicts arise.

Greed and love for fame are not the drivers behind Maan’s passion for music. It’s from experiencing the joys in life, and seeing the beauty in everything.

She said wants to share her joy and peace with everyone, her stories and the things that inspire her. She wants everyone to know that simplicity is a quality worth having. To live simply and have simple wants and needs shows humility and modesty.

“It makes me happy to know that some people absorb the core message of my songs. That is why all my songs are positive, because that is what I advocate. That people find joy in nature and in the simplest of things.”

This article authored by Andrew Angelo Topinio was published in Excalibur, the magazine edition of Crossroads.