The Filipino rock singer Unique was born as "Unique Torralba Salonga" in Manila, Philippines, on April 26, 2000. At fourteen years old, he joined IV of Spades as the group's original lead singer. Unique remained with the band from 2014 to 2018, appearing on songs like "Hey Barbara" — which won three awards at the 2018 Await Awards, including "Best Performance by a Group Recording Artist" and "Best Record" — along the way. Looking to pursue a solo career, he left IV of Spades' lineup in May 2018 and released his debut single, "Midnight Sky," later that year. The song appeared on his debut solo album, Grandma, which also arrived in 2018. Although Grandma didn't chart, its cover art received an Awit Award for "Best Cover Art" in 2019. Unique wrote all songs on the album himself, and he repeated that feat with his second album, Pangalan, which was released in March 2020. Pangalan's biggest single, "Huwag Ka Sanang Magagalit," received a nomination for "Rock/Alternative Song of the Year" at the Wish Music Awards in 2021. Ironically, the song lost the award to a different Unique song, "Sino," which had originally appeared on the Grandma album. Maintaining its popularity several years after its first release, "Sino" reached Number 1 on the Philippines' Top 100 Deezer chart in early 2022 and hit Number 39 on the Top 50: Philippines chart one year later.
