‘Differentology’ heats up Canadian elections

IAN “Bunji Garlin” Alvarez’ 2013 Differentology has been a hit since it first rocked airwaves. It’s now 2019 and Bunji’s Differentology is again rocking stages, this time, on the election campaign trail of Canadian New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Jagmeet Singh.

A September 11 Canadian press article in the langleyadvancetimes.com then said while Singh did not have a theme song for his campaign, he discovered Garlin’s Differentology.

An October 3 ctvnews.ca article said: “Each federal party leader this year has music they blast during campaign rallies to help attendees rock themselves out, with Singh’s current walk-up song being Differentology (Ready Fi Di Road) by Bunji Garlin.”

In a phone interview yesterday, Bunji said he knew of and granted permission to the NDP for use of the song. He added, when asked how he felt of about the song’s use on a political platform, “it is according to if it seems the politician is using the song to carry a good cause or message behind it. Any thing good that the song is used for is always good.” Garlin added that this was a day and age of seeing different things happen with different walks of life on different places on earth. “Now you’re getting to see different variations and versions of that so people would not normally expect to see now you are seeing them and there are good stories behind them,” he said.

He added that he “feels good” about Singh’s use of the song. Garlin added that the song also told Singh’s story that he was ready for the road whatever road appeared before him.

“The fact that the song could be used in any format like that because the song was created with an open format so that it could fit into almost any category which we have seen it done over and over.” Singh’s use of the song, he added, also tells to the song’s strength and staying power.

Garlin added this was not the first time the song was used on a political platform and had been used on political platforms throughout the region. He said Singh’s team reached out to him years ago for use of Differentology on his campaign trail. “So this year is nothing new and every time they moved to a new phase they would reach out to us again for continued use of the song and we would give them the continued use of the song,” he said. This, Garlin said, was about four years ago. The Canadian federal election is scheduled to take place on October 21.