Kimj has just landed in New York when he speaks to NME over Zoom. He’s come back from his US tour, he says, and has just finished some pho at a restaurant. His phone’s on one per cent, and now he’s scrambling for a charger while discussing the state of the Asian underground scene.
This is the Kimj experience: endearing and intense, with the Busan-born producer calm at the helm. His songs strike a similar note; yes, they might sound like Skrillex on steroids, but there’s always sweetness to be found in a snippet of a pop hook, or a glossy synth passage. Combined with his upbringing, Kimj’s become a unique nexus between East and West, fostering a global underground of electronic upstarts through his work with the likes of 2hollis, Nate Sib, The Deep, Effie – and, increasingly, infiltrating mainstream pop by working with the likes of Tinashe.
“The young people, they will always be the future,” Kimj (real name Jaehyun Kim) tells NME. “Their creativity is so pure and so honest, and because they’re most likely living with their families, they’re not thinking about taxes or rent. They have this very pure outlook on life, and it makes the art super fun and fresh.”
Kim moved to New Jersey aged six, where he was enrolled in classical music lessons and plunged into the American pop lexicon. Car trips with his father and stepmother introduced him to the genius of Kesha and Katy Perry, while the rise of then-16-year-old Martin Garrix would inspire Kim to dive into EDM. Those beats proved too tricky for Kim to recreate, but he found more luck with the hip-hop artists his friend introduced him to: Future, Young Thug and Lil Uzi Vert.
Soon, Kim was making ‘type’ beats imitating popular rappers on YouTube, gaining a cult following and selling his instrumentals to the likes of Rod Wave and NBA YoungBoy. But once the pandemic hit, he realised he was reaching his limit: “It was getting exhausting making these similar beats.”
At this point, Kim started searching for a more dynamic sound, where he stumbled upon future collaborator and roommate, SEBii. They moved to New York together following Kim’s high school graduation, and Kim credits him for modelling a lifestyle that embraced his Asian roots.
When Kim first landed in America, he couldn’t speak a word of English, leading to a period of confusion where “I wasn’t really the proudest to be Korean”. It seems odd now, given that he crams endless Korean cultural references into his song titles, but living with the American-Chinese SEBii helped heal this “inner negativity”. “Having these Asian values be so prominent in his character, I would see that and be like… ‘This guy loves being Chinese. Dude, this is badass’,” he recalls. “So I took a look at myself. I’m like, ‘Damn, Korea’s pretty badass, too’. That’s when I was like, ‘I can learn to love myself.’”
“Koreans are hard workers… that burning passion to survive and do better for ourselves is super Korean”
Moving back to Korea around 2024, he adds, helped resolve his relationship with the country. Catalysed by SEBii moving back to Shanghai, Kim spent two years living out of a suitcase, where he got the chance to meet many of his Asian collaborators that he initially discovered over SoundCloud, like fellow Busan native Effie: “It was my first time in my life being super close with a female artist; it really changed my life working with her.”
Now, Kim tells us he’s thinking of moving back to New York after this pivotal artistic period. “I’m ready to come back to America, have a home and be grounded again – moving back to Korea was super important. I knew I needed it, and it was really worth it.”
Reflecting on his time in Korea, Kim says that he’s most proud of the work ethic of South Korea, which derives from the country’s history of liberation from Japanese colonial rule. “Koreans are super hard workers – that’s for better or for worse,” he acknowledges. Though he takes issue with Korea’s more socially conservative stances (“Being openly gay or trans is still very taboo”), the country’s pride and grindset are values he keeps close: “That burning passion we have to survive and do better for ourselves is super Korean.”
That theme arises again when Kim discusses the rebellious group of East Asian creatives who’ve crossed over into the West. Kim is due to play UK collective Eastern Margins’ Margins United festival, which is dedicated to alternative Asian culture; plenty of people on the lineup have worked with Kimj including f5ve, while Taiwan’s R!R!R!iot just supported him on his tour. Meanwhile, the producer has also teased new music with headliner and recent NME Cover starYves to come soon.
He puts his unique position as a producer down to his lived experience as an Asian-American, explaining: “I think America has the fastest-moving culture in the world – me being surrounded by that has shaped my sound to work with homies like Effie or [The] Deep or even Jackzebra, Billionhappy… all these guys who are polarising figures in their country.” Kim adds that the reason for their controversial positions is because “they don’t believe in the ideals or the confinements of their country. China’s such a strict country, and every time I meet Billionhappy, he’s always like, ‘Bro, China’s fried – it’s bad’”.
“America has the fastest-moving culture in the world – me being surrounded by that has shaped my sound”
Interestingly, Kim points out that the source of these internal tensions isn’t entirely oppositional. There are great things about Asia, he emphasises, like the tight security in China and Korea, or the “old ass K-pop bangers” Effie loves to show him. These artists, he theorises, have a “love-hate” relationship with their respective homes, and that frustration is what fuels their music instead.
“They wanna do better for themselves, but they also doing all this polarising s*** in this ‘f*** you’ kind of way, because they want to see their country do better,” he explains. “They want to see everything evolve and get to a better place.”
Kim is set to continue channelling that raw energy in his biggest project to date. Despite having released his third album ‘Kreatures’ earlier this year, he tells NME he’s planning to release a 30-song beast called ‘Dance Music’ in the coming weeks. Excitingly, he tells us that new faces like Frost Children and Audiogoth will feature on the record. Collaboration, Kim says, remains an essential part of his artistry even as his reputation grows bigger: “When you make something greater than the sum of its parts, that’s when something’s really special.”
The album, he adds, was inspired by his invitation to play San Diego festival Niteharts, where he’ll perform alongside other EDM-inspired wunderkinds like Porter Robinson and Underscores. When he first met festival organisers Isoxo and Knock2, he recalls, “I was like, ‘If you guys ever have me, know I would dedicate a whole project for that’. My plan is to finish this album by Niteharts time and release it by then.”
‘Dance Music’, he promises, will thus be his most visceral album yet. “What I want is no concepts: just pure, raw, dance music,” he teases. “I just want people to shake their ass!”
Kimj plays Margins United on September 26, and Niteharts on October 11. ‘Dance Music’ will be released soon
The post Kimj is architecting the rebellious new sound of the Asian underground appeared first on NME.
