In a parking lot in the San Francisco’s South of Market district, rapper EP of the San Francisco rap trio FlipSide is setting the tone for their final song, an ode to the neighborhood they grew up in.

“They don’t really know how we’re living in the SoMa,” he says, echoing part of the song’s refrain,“ ‘cause they never really see us.”

It’s an early set on a July afternoon, a warm-up for the growing crowd excited to check out San Francisco scratch king DJ QBert at the summer’s first installment of Undiscovered SF. But the rap group aptly sums up the larger goal of the Filipino night market, which is back following last year’s successful inaugural stint at the Mint and has its next of four monthly gatherings on Saturday, Aug. 18.

Behind all the Filipino food trucks, retailers and performances taking place in the parking lots behind The Chronicle building is a grand mission. A new vision of the future for the city’s Filipino community, for SoMa and even for all of San Francisco is simmering with promise on this ground, says Desi Danganan.

More Information Undiscovered SF : 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 18. Third Saturday of the month through Oct. 20. Free. Parking lots behind The Chronicle building at 401 Minna St. www.undiscoveredsf.com

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The founder of Kultivate Labs, the nonprofit business accelerator behind Undiscovered, Danganan is spearheading the economic front of a budding cultural district known as SOMA Pilipinas.

While the city’s Filipino population has dwindled after waves of redevelopment over the years — many being priced or forced out and moving to areas such as Daly City — a community has remained in SoMa. In 2016, the city and state officially designated a swath of land stretching from Second Street to 11th as the Filipino cultural heritage district, SOMA Pilipinas.

Yet beyond the name itself, the hoped-for boosts in visibility, infrastructure and economic viability remain elusive.

“Oftentimes when city governments create these cultural districts, it’s like, ‘Whoops! Sorry, you were once here, and here’s our memorial to you,’ ” Danganan says. He points to cultural districts in other cities that are formed around “fossilized” communities — places like Stockton and Los Angeles, where Little Manilas are established in name, while few Filipinos remain.

“We’re the exact opposite,” Danganan says of San Francisco’s SoMa. “We still have a Filipino community, and it’s thriving and evolving.”

The evolution comes by way of solutions like Kultivate Labs. As an entrepreneurial incubator, Danganan’s nonprofit aims to establish a full commercial corridor of Filipino businesses down Mission Street by 2020.

Undiscovered is one facet of the efforts to develop Filipino businesses, many from SoMa, to eventually become the corridor’s brick-and-mortars. The success of last year’s Undiscovered season, Danganan says, played a major role in providing a sense of legitimacy for discussions now taking place with land developers. It’s a form of adaptation — combating future displacement by playing within the new rules of a changing city.

“In order for you to survive in the 21st century, you have to learn how to build bridges,” says Rudy Valentino, a lifelong SoMa resident who founded United Playaz, a violence-prevention, youth-development program based in the area.

Attending last month’s Undiscovered, Valentino watched his fellow Fil-Am community members mingling, dancing, gathering for merienda — himself enjoying a steaming pile of chicken adobo from the food tent for JT Restaurant.

“You have to be able to sit at the table for them to hear what our needs are,” he adds.

Valentino has seen stability for the local Filipino community dwindle over the years . After arriving in SoMa from Los Angeles in the late ’90s, Danganan remembers places like Bessie Carmichael/Filipino Education Center, a San Francisco public school, and the Bayanihan Community Center as mysterious signifiers of an otherwise inconspicuous enclave.

Undiscovered is meant to build awareness and buzz about a community that still exists, while its vendors that may eventually live on the commercial corridor would serve as the visible identity of SOMA Pilipinas. Cultural districts like Chinatown or Japantown are distinct because “businesses of those communities there act as placeholders, as anchors, so you know when you entered the cultural district and when you left,” Danganan says.

The motivation is personal for Danganan, who, before founding places like the historic cafe co-working space Summit SF and the restaurant/nightclub Poleng Lounge, arrived in SoMa for the first dot-com boom. But Danganan says he soon realized he was part of the problem, not a solution.

“I came here for the internet, (thinking) that we were going to build a better world,” he says. “We didn’t build a better world — we made it worse. We’re displacing people. Our whole economic system is broken.”

As Kultivate Labs lays a new foundation, Danganan now envisions the potential to affect all of San Francisco. He sees Undiscovered and the development of SOMA Pilipinas as a “beacon of hope” for the Filipino diaspora and other marginalized communities.

“If we can make this work for the Filipino community, then we might have kind of stumbled upon the magic formula to help other vulnerable communities fight displacement — by turning economic development around to their benefit,” he says.

Filipinos have come nationwide, from as far as Michigan and the East Coast, to Undiscovered. Danganan refers to a message one visitor had sent about coming from Wisconsin solely to attend in an effort to reconnect to his culture.

“It brought tears to my eyes,” Danganan says. “It makes me realize we’re doing something special.”

Brandon Yu is a Bay Area freelance writer.