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Catherine Yu-Shan Hsieh is an associate editor at NY Arts. Koba is a Brooklyn-based hip-hop artist.
Koba performing at Union Square. Photo credit: Derek Srisaranard.Wearing a pair of baggy jeans, a khaki shirt, and a military green cap, Koba dropped the lines of his song “Rise Up Move” at the Five Points (formerly Teabag,) an independent arts organization in China Town, New York City: “Rise up like global warming / Like a new morning / This is our warning, come on / Move, like it’s New Orleans /And never stopped storming for the most poor and / Everybody rise up like gas prices / Like another crisis if it’s our life man, come on / Move, push hard / Let it unfurl / Move it like we movin’ the whole weight of the world.” As Koba waved his hand high up in the air, pacing up and down, his voice was getting more and more aggressive, trying to engage the audience of about 20, most of whom appeared to be Asian and in their twenties: “Say rise up, move, come on now!” This is a video on Koba’s MySpace Web site that catches Koba live in action on September 15, 2006.
While the audience in the video was primarily Asian, Koba doesn’t cater to Asian fans only. Koba’s MySpace Web site is myspace.com/–not koba–but modelminority. “It’s tongue-in-cheek, saying the real ‘model minority’ finds solidarity with other marginalized peoples instead of being used as pawns against them,” he said. Apparently, Koba is not your ordinary hip-hop superstar wannabe, although he has been living for the past seven years in Brooklyn, home to countless other aspiring hip-hop artists. Now 27 years old, Koba is a Filipino-American rapper who channels his political passions into hip-hop. By rapping about the current state of politics and social issues, he participated in events like the Stop Racist Hot 97 Rally at Union Square, the Anti-War Hip-Hop Festival, and the Katrina Relief Show at Imaginasian Theater.
Attending these events gives Koba a chance to speak his mind, or more precisely, to speak for the oppressed. His identity as a minority factors deeply into his music, which is a mix of hip-hop and the Asian-American experience. Although hip-hop symbolizes an authentic representation of black identity, Koba utilizes this music genre, which is not of his ethnic heritage, to convey his point of view and ideology.
“What music genre is of ‘Asian-American heritage?’ There really aren’t any,” said Oliver Wang, a music journalist who teaches about race and popular culture at California State University in Long Beach. “The history of Asian-American music is really of artists encountering existing genres and participating in them, not just hip-hop, but jazz, rock, folk, etc. Given that our community is very young and very fragmented, it’s hard to conceive what a uniquely Asian-American musical style would look or sound like. As a result, I think it makes sense that Asian Americans would turn to other music styles as a way to express themselves artistically. Hip-hop would hold a special interest given the ways in which rap music expresses such an explicit politics of racial identity and pride. I think this appeals to Asian Americans who are seeking similar avenues for expression about their own racial difference and identities. This seems especially true for those who see a political solidarity between Asian and African Americans.”
At a time when hip-hop has become so pervasive in the music industry, the younger generations, Asian Americans included, grow up listening to hip-hop. Koba is one of them. “Koba is part of an emerging wave of Asian Americans who’ve grown up on hip-hop and have made the transition from being fans to being artists themselves,” Wang said. “The number of Asian-American rappers is still small, relative to the sheer number of rappers of all ethnicities, but there’s been a massive increase in aspiring Asian-American artists in just this decade compared to what you saw in the 90s.”
Back in the 90s, Koba was Charles McHale. He came across the name Koba in an 1883 novel “The Patricide” by a Georgian writer, Alexander Kazbegi. The name Koba in Georgian means “the indomitable.” Koba is the main character in the book. A train robber, Koba would rob from the rich and give to the poor, and even take vengeance against the Czar. The concept of this Georgian Robin Hood stayed with McHale as he pursued activism through hip-hop.
Born in Lowville, NY, Koba is of American and Filipino descent. His father was serving in the American Navy when he met Koba’s mother, who is Filipino. Because of his mother, Koba has a heavier accent. “[The accent] was tough to deal with,” Koba said. “I resented it growing up. My friends looked down on me. And then after I became politicized, I became proud of it. I tried to learn more about it.”
Throughout his life Koba has been mistaken as Latino or Native American. Growing up in Syracuse, Koba thought racism was part of life. “It’s interesting because a lot of people didn’t know me personally, didn’t know my mom,” Koba said. “They couldn’t really figure out who, what I was.” Even during school, Koba had a nickname “Chief.” During a high school assembly where invited guests from the Indian reservation came to give a cultural presentation, a girl yelled out, “Chuck (Koba’s former nickname,) that’s you, that’s your family on stage.” Everyone laughed. “Once I got politicized, I got smarter about it,” Koba said. “People would say I was American Indian or Native. I’d be like, ‘Yeah, man, get off my land.’”
Now working as a legal assistant in the World Financial Center, Koba has a steady income, but that also means he has less time to make music. That’s why every day during lunch break Koba takes his iPod, goes to a corner of the cafeteria, and writes music. The song “Rise Up Move” was inspired one day during lunch break when he was in the World Financial Center overlooking the ongoing construction at Ground Zero from 36 floors up: “I see it all unfold / Watch the sky explode / The vultures and the snakes pick at the parts below.”
After work, Koba assumes the rapper role, jamming music with his roommates, or “brother artists” as he calls them, from Outernational, a rock and hip-hop band of five. Two of them, Miles Solay and Jesse Williams, live with Koba in an apartment overlooking 13th Street on the second floor of a brick building in Brooklyn.
Fall 2004, Koba went on tour with Outernational in North Carolina. He opened for the band with a half-hour show. “It was amazing,” said Mintek, another member of Outernational. “He had the complete command of the stage, command of the audience. … His voice sounded good. And he came with this politically hard stuff. … This is during the Iraq War. ‘They shooting but we shoot back / Man I hope they get their ass kicked in Iraq.’” The song was a spin on Nas’ “Made You Look.” Koba did an alteration of Nas’ chorus. The rest of the chorus is “getting’ big money till the oil dries up / George Bush cowboy now your time’s up.”
While being monstrously energetic and overpowering on stage, Koba is anything but talkative in person. He speaks slowly in a low voice. His accent sometimes makes it hard to discern his words. Most of the time, he tends to be quiet. But his calm and collected appearance doesn’t disguise Koba’s passion for hip-hop. “My impression when we started doing hip-hop kind of rap-style music, the thing I saw in Koba was that he was incredibly hungry and still is hungry,” said DJ Boo, who has been working with Koba for the past four years. “Every time I would see him, his skills would improve. It’s like the time I didn’t spend with him in the studio, or on stage, it was like he was doing his homework, constantly listening to all sorts of music.”
Being a Filipino-American rapper, Koba does not confine his music to expressing only Asian Americans’ experience. In fact, many of his songs deal with minorities’ and immigrants’ struggles and the social injustices they face. The song “Cooley High” talks about the Muslim immigrants in France and their uprising against racist police. “Migrante” focuses on Latino Americans and the hardship they undergo in the States. “Sean Bell Is Dead” tells the story of a young African American killed mistakenly hours before his wedding by the police in Queens and the unaccountability of authorities. More often than not Koba is concerned with politics and the effect it has on people and the world as a whole. “Rise Up Move” encompasses issues such as the Iraqi War, Hurricane Katrina, and global warming
While being Filipino-American makes it tough to gain a mainstream success, the question of whether or not to categorize oneself is always on Koba’s mind. “The idea of being easy to categorize yourself was real,” Koba said. “If it didn’t bother you, then you’re probably not thinking that deeply about the world and who you are and your place in it. Obviously I have a much different approach now. I’m a political rapper, and also I’m Filipino-American. I don’t have a problem about that.”
In the land of hip-hop, people need something different than the dichotomy of the gangster rapper and the conscious rapper. They need someone like Koba, who is the combination of both, Mintek said. “I think people who listen to the gangster rap would get a lot out of what he does,” Mintek said. “I think he really appeals to them. I think he’s really bridging that gap and at the same time creating something that transcends this all. … He’s really trying to create a vision of a whole new world in his music.”
In March 2005, Koba was performing with DJ Boo at the Stop Racist Hot 97 Rally at Union Square. Bitter cold as the day was, Koba got his chance to shine and caught people’s attention, DJ Boo said. In April 2006, Koba opened for Talib Kweli, a famous black political rapper in alternative hip-hop, at Skirball Center for the Performing Arts at New York University, which was the biggest site where Koba has ever performed, with an audience of a thousand. It was not only a huge honor, but an exciting breakthrough for Koba. Filipino-American though he may be, “[Koba] can rock a crowd with no Filipinos in it,” Mintek said.
It was a year ago when I first met Koba. It was a Saturday afternoon in February. Koba had worked with Mintek on his first solo album until 2 a.m. the night before. As Koba left the diner where the interview took place, he said he was attending an event later that evening hosted by World Can’t Wait, an organization aiming to drive out the Bush regime. Before that, if he had time, he was going to keep on working with Mintek on the guitar part of the song “When the Wind,” which would be included in his solo album, then temporarily titled “Where Are We Going? There Are No Roads.” Now titled “Culture War,” this solo album is scheduled for a late spring release. The question of whether there are roads or not doesn’t seem to matter anymore, because a winding path before Koba is unfolding as he goes on rapping.
