This is the third installment of Tongass Voices, a series from KTOO sharing weekly perspectives from the homelands of the Áak’w Kwáan and beyond.
Miko Montoya, also known as OKIMS, is an independent rapper who moved to Juneau from Aklan, Philippines in late 2022. He and Grayson Rebustes, known as WordPlay the Flyest, opened for Afroman last year alongside other local rappers. Now, these two artists are working to build the rap scene in Juneau.
Listen:
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Miko Montoya: My name is Miko Montoya, aka OKIMS.
Grayson Rebustes: It’s Grayson Rebustes, aka Wordplay the Flyest.
Miko Montoya: So since back home in the Philippines, I have been performing and organizing events. So I was like kinda, you know, wondering if there’s a scene here, if there’s a community, a hip hop community here in Juneau, until my cousin Hans Javier, he’s the one who told me that I have a nephew called, you know, WordPlay.
Grayson Rebustes: Yeah, Miko’s been hittin’ me up. And I was like, “Who is this guy?” My uncle Hans was like, “Yo, I have this guy from the Philippines.” I was like, “Oh, from the Philippines. That’s crazy.” And then he hits me up with his new songs. And he’s rapping in Filipino and I was like, “Oh, yeah.”
Grayson Rebustes: But, yeah, the Afroman show. That was my favorite show I’ve ever done, it’s the biggest show I’ve ever done. Man, like, it was packed. And right before he went, I was like, “Yo, Miko, hit ‘em with some of that Filipino.” And then he did it. Like, it just went wild.
Miko Montoya: But I didn’t really expect because the lyrics that I wrote for the cypher was in Tagalog, right. I mean, Taglish, it’s Tagalog and English. But I wasn’t expecting that they just gonna be hype like that. I mean, I thought some people were just gonna be like, “Oh!” But they be like, hella.
Grayson Rebustes: That crowd was crazy. The guy coming up to me, he’s like, “Yo, where you guys from?” and I’m just like, “I’m from here. We’re all from here.” He was like, “No way.”
Miko Montoya: Like, yeah, ‘cuz I was like, they don’t know. Like, you know, they don’t know that Juneau has artists like, you know, knows how to perform like hip hop, like, knows how to rap.
Miko Montoya: Comparing the Juneau and back home was like, you know, it’s really hard to here. If you’re like a hip hop artist. Because I get bars for free to put on an event in the Philippines. Like they don’t ask us anything about money, because I’m bringing people there. So in my own opinion, it was really tough because like, where are you gonna see this artist at?
Grayson Rebustes: Yeah, like, I know there’s other artists here. We just aren’t able to build them up.
Miko Montoya: You know, someday people will get this. Like what we’re doing. You know, like, this is for everyone.