Jo Koy on Getting His Start in Comedy, Racism from Family Being Half Asian

jo koy was good uh just living man it's hard when you're on the road a lot and you can't ya can't like pay attention to yourself you know I mean it's a it's a constant battle just trying to get some rest but got to do it was what I dreamed to do so it's happening I mean it's a good thing I mean that means a year you're being booked and you're making money and you're yeah anything I was saying that to my friend the other day I was like like my son lives a good life but man I got to sacrifice a lot you know so it was his birthday on a Thursday and then of course I was on the road Friday and all I was thinking about was like man need to be home you know it's just but then I'm like well he's gonna have a good birthday party on Sunday cause daddy's making money right now you know right so let's start for the beginning where'd you grow up um I started in Tacoma that's where I grew up Tacoma Washington I was actually a military baby Oh go I grew up everywhere Misawa Japan the Philippines but I call Seattle my home because that's that's where my dad retired so okay yeah you're half Filipino half white half Filipino half white okay so what was it like during that time kind of growing up you know being a mixed kid that time was weird like these kids now there's a lot of mixed kids now yeah exactly um but back then it was it was weird to see a kid that had kind of like like almond shaped eyes with the green you know they're either trying to figure you out in the 80s like man what are you know you're not white you're something there's flavor in there uh but it was it was weird but it is you know I definitely got my taste of racism at that time you know just on my family side uh that's why I don't know my dad's side at all you know I mean I don't know my grandparents you know they passed away and talked to my dad about that like it sucked you know they didn't want to get to know my mom and that's how it was back then you can't blame them from the old school you know what I mean okay so your mom's Filipino yeah and your dad's why - can be and and the white side of the family yeah with this half Filipino kid yeah I don't think they were they were alright with me because I was half my dad's kid you never mean but they weren't really feeling the whole mom situation so never saw him during Christmas never never got to call grandma grandpa yeah so it was kind of rough that's why when I do my stand-up it's always about my mom and my mom's side cuz that's all I really know it's just my mom and dad divorced when I was like 11 and then that was it didn't really see anybody on that side so you basically raised Filipino yeah yeah it was until I started getting pretty popular that's when my white side started coming back like writing like my mid 30s I start seeing all this my white family coming back hey the roommate doesn't hey it's your uncle that were your uncle they didn't buy you [ __ ] crickets remember me your and I didn't get you a [ __ ] for your birthday well can we sit in the front row sucks man oh wow oh really so how did you get into comedy initially um well I always want to be a comic like when I saw Eddie Murphy delirious I was I was like I think I was 11 12 I was like I gotta be him that's that's who I need to be right there I need that red leather outfit right now if they make that for a 12 year old can I get that right now please right now and that's all I watched every day when you're broke that's all you do you well when I was a kid we get a VHS tape and you put masking tape over the little square hole I don't even think you know what I'm talking about nice job I see you don't record over it you know you you do that so you do record all you do record oh yeah yeah right exactly it was like a like say it was Superman whatever video you had you just put tape over it you could record over see right break off the little plastic pieces so so you don't record so you don't record exact let me put tape over so you can record over here and then I and I remember I put that tape over there just to get this dalire off of HBO and I mean I wore that tape out man it was like before I went to school I watched it when I came home i watch it at school I was acting like Eddie Murphy and I just knew right when I got out of high school I was going to do stand-up okay that's what I was in love with so what happened next a lot of depression when you live in Seattle and you're broke it's pretty depressing man it wasn't until I moved to Vegas when I actually saw sunshine for the first time of my life I was like yes now I can come out of my shell and and that's where I started my stand it was in Vegas okay so what were like the first few stand-ups like oh man horrible I did a competition called star mania and I had to be 21 because they were hosting him at bars and I was only like 18 19 I'd had to like grow the peach fuzz and then color it in and make it Dart okay and I pray to God they didn't card me at the door and a man I just bombed every time I bombed I did this one show called the biggest fool competition which happened on April Fool's Day at the Tropicana and man I bombed so bad and I did that thing where I I didn't want to get off stage because I wanted them to at least laugh once so I stayed on stage and then to the point where the manager was on the side of the stage going hey can you get the [ __ ] off the stage and that I had to walk up to the stage but man that was that's how it was the first ten times just bombing repeatedly but I'm glad I stuck with it man so was you know after after bombing a bunch of times what do you think was like your first break think it was a coffee house it was called Buzzy's cafe and I got like my first I think it was just be talking I remember going up and there was like maybe four or five people in the audience should even call audience it's just patrons buying coffee and uh and I just went up and just talked wasn't trying to do a routine or anything I think at that point I gave up on what I was writing and I just went up and I was just joking around and I hit some hit some chords man people were laughing and I was like alright I got it I think this is it right here and I know what I need to do now and that was it it was an addiction after that no more butterflies it was always like I can't wait till the next open mic you know I mean so it was an addiction after that sure now when do you think you start actually making some progress in your career when I started making progress is when I did I lied about everything man I used to say I was on tour I made my own resume I did I got my dad give me a headshot he went and took some pictures of me and I made a headshot and I was submitting it to people saying I was tore in the country and I didn't even have like 10 minutes I was just trying to get into clubs never got into anything and then finally be et I don't know if you remember the show called comic view of course but they used to tour it was called comic view on the road and they came to Vegas and there at this place called the country star restaurant it was weird but they had a stage there that's at like 500 people and once again I grabbed my fake resume my headshot and I ran all the way to the front of the line and asked the security guard they can get the promoter so I can just hand it to I was like you know let me just hand this to him I'm not on the show just let me hand this to him and he was like let me go get her let me go get this I was like this the first time I ever seen a security guard actually helps somebody is that let me go get her and he went got her her name was Yvette I remember her of course because she gave me my first shot she came right up to the front door and I handed her the I read my resume and I was like you know I'm a local comic if you ever get a chance to just look at the tape and uh but if you ever come back I wanted you know if I could open or you don't have to pay me and she said well come on in she goes we're already booked like I just come on in and watch the show and I came in and and everybody that was on that show was late everybody was late and uh so she looked at me and she was like you want to go up because all the comics are late right now so you want to go up and do like five ten minutes and I went up and did five ten minutes and that was it I got off stage and they were like where the hell have you been and I got booked on comic be that day okay and that was pretty much that was it it was uh that was kind of like that whole it just catapulted me I got to do all these black comedy rooms and I was starting meet black comics you know all the all the guys I saw in comic viewer like becoming my friends and you know I mean and hooking me up with gigs and it was great man so Yvette Anderson she's when I gave my first break comic view so you were primarily working to black audiences at that yeah my first my first it went from coffee houses and theater like like movie theaters not theaters like like they had these movie theaters in Vegas where they there would be some nights where they didn't show movies and they would do a comedy night so you have this big screen behind you just just seats randomly just they would put people that it just looked like miserable people in the casino that ran out of money I said [ __ ] if there's a free show over here and they would just sit and watch you and just make you feel bad because they were miserable and and yeah that it went from that to to comicview and then I did the TV show comic view and I got a standing O that night so that was my claim to fame on that because I I was I was submitting that tape to everybody man and uh and then from there I got the black comedy tour where we toured all the colleges and you know with the black comedy tour these colleges wanted diversity so they couldn't just have a black lineup they always had to have at least one cat that was white asian or or latino and i was i was all of them yeah yeah yeah like a Latino yes his name is jo koy he's for the Philippines is that Latinos it doesn't matter yeah he got a white comic yes it's jo koy his dad is right doesn't really know his dad but he's like so yeah and I did that for about two years and I got on the def Comedy Jam tour I you know it was crazy man I got on the Apollo I won the Apollo oh yeah in a mood at the Apollo yeah I want it man I think they they they boo the coming before me and then they they they I want it yeah I've uh I've gone into Apollo you know like a day though back in the 90s like when it was hardcore yeah I I went in the 2003 mm yeah but even then I remember brutal it was like still brutal one one wrong word and you're just running down by booze no look at here you out right the guy the brew comes out yeah dance oh man oh he did that like at least three times on my show and I was just like I remember my heart was pounding on the outside of my chest because I was like if this man comes out and dances during my act it's a rap it's a rap you don't mean I told everybody I was going to do the Apollo you know I mean yeah and I was back in the day where there wasn't that many TV channels so everyone knew what channel the Apollo was on you know it would have killed me man so thank God I think god I won that one Rudy rush gave me that so big shout-out to Rudy man I was I was amazing so what was it like being you know white slash Asian comic with black audiences but the thing is comedies comedy you know as long as you're funny you're funny that's what I love about black audiences they're the most honest out of all of them out of all in it and I hate to segregate audiences but it literally is like that you have your black audiences you have your white audiences you have your Latino and Asian audiences and uh as long as you just you're funny man people laugh laughter is just it's universal you know I mean they know what's funny and they know what sucks it's just black audiences really lets you know it's uh like if you got booed before oh yeah but that was with any audience I've gotten booed dude I did a show in Idaho man I want to run to the car just leave the town you know it was bad Boise Idaho man I remember I did that kick it took me eight hours to get there and I was willing to like get in the car go eight hours back because I was like I can't hang out here they hate me like what was the worst thing that's happened during it the worst was also in Idaho I was crowd working I was doing I was opening for some comic I forgot his name but I was I was doing crowd work and I just had a table to my left just unruly and I remember they every time I kept doing some type of sex they kept saying some girl's name and I just finally I just said it I forgot her name and I was like it's Becky like the town [ __ ] like that right and then dude stands up in the middle of the of the room in front because this thing was a nightclub by the way so I didn't even there was no seats on the dance floor because they didn't want to ruin the dance floor here's one of those towns okay so they sat everybody on the outside of the dance floor can you visualize what it looks like and then of course there was a drum set behind me because I'm performing for a band that's going to come out and kill it and and all they had was a spotlight way at the back of the room and you just see this cowboy just stand up in front of spotlight like it was out of a movie and you just see the cowboy hat and everything and I'm looking at this silhouette and he's like that's my sister man and I'm like [ __ ] like I just froze and then now I'm begging for my life I'm like a you know Joey like you know Mia that I did this whole thing about I can't fight I'm a [ __ ] like you fighting me is not fair because I'm not gonna fight you're a cowboy you're just gonna wrote me I remember saying that you're gonna rope me in like five seconds and I we were getting on my back and I have my hands six of my ankles and then he loved that like I was performing for one man at that point and he loved it all right all right I'll get you a drink you know like oh man no you're not I'm [ __ ] out of here when this is done but that was it man that was one of those ah but there's like three gigs that stand out that's the one that stands out the most Idaho and then there was another one at the Comedy Store where I had all these people coming out to write up about me snitch on you know they were good do a write up like an article like okay young comic Jill Coit comes to LA and I was so excited man I was like I'm gonna get a magazine a write-up and dude I ate my ass on stage for like eight minutes never when I got off the writer walked up he was like well reschedule we'll give you another chance we'll reschedule okay Joe let's not write about this hahaha I don't think we want this on on print right let's all come back maybe in a year that [ __ ] never came back so what do you got coming up I'm shooting my special in Seattle so it'll be all me I'm paying for it wearing all the hats cool doing it myself man it's gonna be my third one I can't wait cannot wait on this one and then more Corolla show than my own podcast the koi pond man so on the Corolla Network I'm a fan of Drake I'm a fan fans was the idea of Drake's oh no disrespecting is great what do you buy the idea of Drake who love me meaning that if he has a ghostwriter he's an idea he's not me ignited it's a perception created that he's not really writing the lyrics and it's a it's yeah it's just like in here let's listen let's make this in the factory and put it out I'm just on top of my game right now I've let it up I'm just getting blessed some book four or five times a week 60 75 cash oh man I'm jumping I'm winning right now man and I'm just steady trying to increase my husband

Channel: djvlad

Views: 600,917

Rating: 4.8944497 out of 5

Keywords: VladTV, DJ Vlad, Interview, Hip-Hop, Rap, News, Gossip, Rumors, Drama, Jo Koy, Comedy, Racism, Asian, Las Vegas

Id: OJrCBw_Zxq0

Length: 16min 44sec (1004 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 04 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

He pretty much was raised like a filipino as he grew up. He dad of father family treat him like bastard son.Since white family are more old white tradition school 1960 racist shit.

[u/hobingo]

He is white passing