Music and chicken adobo for Jason Derulo

MANILA, Philippines - He doesn’t have enough time to go around the country, but before he flies to Toronto for the next leg of his tour, American singer, songwriter, dancer and actor Jason Derulo wants to do something very Pinoy. He wants a taste of chicken adobo, which an executive of Warner Brothers advised him to try.

 That’s just about the only Pinoy thing he will get to enjoy, aside from the crowd that is expected to turn up in his shows tonight at Alabang Town Center and tomorrow at TriNoma.

“I don’t think I have much free time,” he admits. “I just want to try a lot of the new food.”

Jason, it turns out, doesn’t have enough time for many things these days. After coming up with the smash hits Watcha Say, In My Head and Ridin’ Solo, Jason has been performing from one city to another. He performed in Malaysia before arriving in the Philippines yesterday to perform for the first time in the country. The show, held in Glorietta last night, proved why the 20-year-old performer’s music is making a lot of waves these days.

His songs touch on feelings young people are achingly familiar with: longing (In My Head), passion (his debut single Watcha Say) and others. He also has a paean to being single and independent: Ridin’ Solo.

Jason moves with the energy of his childhood idol, Michael Jackson. But the guy’s music is his own.

“My music is deeper than pop,” he says. “I grew up studying all sounds of music. So my music has rock and roll. It has Euro dancing and R&B. I don’t think I can just put it in one box I wanna be able to do all kinds of music. I don’t wanna be limited to a certain type.”

Jason is not as anything goes in his work, though. His focus is only on one thing: Performing.

That’s the force that drives Jason to hop from one country to another; from one tour to the next.

It has made him perform in Lady Gaga’s sold-out tour of North America.

And soon, it will make him share the stage with the Black Eyed Peas.

“I always tell the kids around me to take one thing and be great at that one thing rather than take a million things and just being good at that. I do a lot of different kinds of performing but it’s still performing,” he relates.

Aspiring performers can take the cue from that.