SL’s Mighty Joe an International Sensation

At the ripe old age of 24, San Leandro’s own hip hop artist Mighty Joe, aka Joe Kim, is getting ready for his second international tour. 

Kim, who fell in love with hip hop while a sophomore at San Leandro High, departs for Australia on May 8. He plans on spending a month touring the country and performing at various venues.

He's uncertain about the full details of the tour, but the loose schedule, and the possibilities for filling it up, seem to energize Kim. 

“My home base is going to be Melbourne," Kim said. "One show is at an art gallery opening. That should be dope. I think we might have some radio time out there with ‘triple j’ radio,” Kim told me recently at my home in the San Joaquin Valley.

The “we” are Kim and fellow hip hop artist Omar Musa, an Australian whom he met while attending UC Santa Cruz. Musa won the Australian Poetry Slam in 2008 and has an international reputation.

Kim and Musa formed the hip hop group MoneyKat and have been touring and spreading their love of music around the world under this name. The first MoneyKat album should be finished within the next few months, Kim said.

Despite his relative rookie status in hip hop, Kim is already making a name for himself overseas. He spent most of this past fall performing throughout Southeast Asia. These shows ranged from intimate performances in small villages to large-scale concerts.

Kim and Musa even got transnational exposure when their set at the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival was televised throughout Southeast Asia.* Kim describes the entire experience as awe-inspiring.

“It blew my mind just being out there," Kim said. "Music is universal. People don’t think about what hip hop is like in Indonesia. I hadn’t thought about that until I went out there. Hip hop was so fitting in that aspect that it just blew my mind.”

Kim, whose musical influences include J Dilla, Tupac, and Outkast, said much of the hip hop produced in Southeast Asian is deeply rooted in the region's culture. He even encountered a style that laces traditional Javanese mantras and poems over hip hop beats. 

“It’s something they said felt natural,” Kim added exuberantly.

There was a steep language barrier, Kim noted, but a clear musical connection and energy between himself and his audiences in Southeast Asia.

“The crowd probably didn’t understand most of what we were saying. And they were rocking with us. How can you explain that? Just respect all the way. The truth that was there was unmistakable.”

This is the same “truth” that Kim discovered while growing up here in the Bay Area.

Born in San Francisco, Kim moved to the East Bay early on in his childhood. He stayed in Oakland briefly, but settled in San Leandro during the fourth grade and began attending . Kim then went on to and . It was while at SLHS that Kim discovered his love for making music.

“I started rapping, and started making music and all that. I still do it today as a love, as a passion. But up until this point it’s still just love,” he said.

Love and music have been the driving forces in Kim’s life. He says that they have influenced his life and lyrics “entirely, wholly.”

Kim said that up until recently, his friends made up the bulk of his audience. He always wrote with the people closest to him in mind.

Now that he's taking his music to the other side of the world for the second time, Kim is simply looking forward to sharing the music that has greatly impacted his life with others.

“If you feel it, then it’s yours," Kim said of his music. "I see the trip more as just, I’m getting blessed with something so I’m going to try to just experience it for all it’s worth, and try to rock my hardest, and share myself with Australia.

"There’s no better way to live. Love. Yeah, man. What else is there? Next question!" he laughed.

*Watch youtube videos of Mighty Joe and Musa on tour by clicking on the photo at right. You can check out more of Mighty Joe’s music on SoundCloud. Also, you can follow him on his trip through Australia through Facebook and Tumblr.