When you spend most of your childhood watching the performances of pop and R&B icons, you either shelf them as childhood memories or grow up to be just like them. For multitalented artist Dom Guyot, it’s the latter. 

The walls of Dom’s childhood home in Cebu had reverberated with the songs of Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Celine Dion. His dad would buy Blu-Ray DVDs of these female stars’ concerts for him, and if managing your screen time had already been a thing back then, it’s clear that they’d be on the top of Dom’s tracker. 

“As a bading, nagpapakita ako sa family ko na I’m gonna copy Beyoncé’s moves. I’d do the little dances sa mga concert niya dati,” he playfully recalled during his Rappler Live Jam guesting. 

(As a gay, I’d show my family that I was gonna copy Beyoncé’s moves. I’d do the little dances from her concerts before.) 

Unsurprisingly, this would signal the start of Dom’s very own career as an artist. But make no mistake: inspired as he may be by these pop and R&B queens, Dom has tread his own path, and he’s built a sound that’s unmistakably his. 

A multitalented diva

Dom had gone through the classic dreamer-to-doer pipeline: be exposed to music from an early age and almost immediately start writing songs of your own in your bedroom. 

For Dom, songwriting was a way to cope with whatever he had been going through at the time. While that hasn’t changed, music has now become a full-time job, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

“I love, live, and breathe music,” Dom asserted — so much so that he packed his bags to chase the dream in Manila, even if it meant having to do it all alone at first. 

It was difficult being away from his family and friends in the beginning. Still, Dom was determined to see it all through. Navigating a once-unfamiliar environment and learning its language, however, were made easier with the help of fellow musicians who have now become his lifelong friends.

“Janine Berdin, Jolianne, Dia Maté, and MRLD, they’ve been my rocks in Manila,” he shared. 

While relocating to Manila was a choice Dom knew he had to make, it came with the broader wish that one day, Cebuano musicians could thrive in their hometowns without having to uproot the life they’ve always known just to get a shot at recognition. 

“For me, if you really want to make it big in music, personally, you have to move because it’s hard to make a living out of music in Cebu compared to here in Manila. And it’s a sad reality. That’s why I’m trying to break that barrier and hopefully open more doors for the Cebuano artists kasi maraming magagaling sa Cebu talaga (because there are really a lot of talented people in Cebu),” Dom said. 

And Dom’s proven to be one of those remarkable talents. His stable vocals (which he can seamlessly shift from the height of tenor to the depths of baritone) are easy to identify in a sea of other singers, and no matter how far he is from Cebu, the lyrics in many of his songs are always sure to have traces of Bisaya here and there. 

It’s not just through Dom’s unique vocal tone that he stands out, though. He’s a performer in all ways — excelling not just in song, but in movement, too, and he isn’t afraid to make that known to the world. 

Along with music, Dom was also a serious dancer when he was still a student, starting with his dance group SZHD in Cebu, with whom he would join competitions. 

“I represented the Philippines in Australia when I was a minor, and I won gold,” Dom shared between songs on Rappler Live Jam. 

Play Video

Now, during his music performances, you get the full package. You hear his heavenly voice in the flesh, and when the more upbeat songs come on (think “Manloloko (feat. Zae)”), you see it interpreted through dance as well. 

Hopes and dreams coming alive

Although it’s only been around two years since Dom moved to the Philippine capital, as early as now, he’s already making his mark in the industry at large. 

Just ask all the other artists he’s collaborated with. His control over the pen isn’t just evident in his own discography, but in the work of a handful of others, too. He’s written lyrics for the likes of Marina Summers and Sassa Gurl, and while he isn’t one to play favorites, one of the highlights of his career as a songwriter was getting to string together words that Regine Velasquez would sing. 

In 2025, Dia Maté joined forces with Asia’s Songbird for the song “Ina,” an empowering tribute to the LGBTQ+ community. As a queer individual who was raised by pop divas like Velasquez, it was a dream come true for some of Dom’s fingerprints to make it into her legendary catalogue. 

“She’s every gay boy’s mother. So I felt really, really, really, really good when I found out that she was hopping on the song. I wrote that song, and then pitched it to Dia, and then they pitched it to Regine. It just really made me so proud na kahit papaano, at least may kantang nasa discography ni Ate Reg na ako ‘yung nagsulat (that in one way or another, at least there’s a song in Ate Reg’s discography that I wrote),” Dom shared. 

Despite all these amazing accolades, Dom is far from done. He wants you to keep streaming his music to keep him fed enough, he joked, to have the energy to put out more of his creations into the world. 

For as long as you’re there to listen, Dom Guyot will keep going. – Rappler.com