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Overview
Seoul Train is a Korean-born, London-based, 2x award-winning DJ and producer known for high-energy, crowd-driven sets rooted in Hip-Hop and electronic music. Drawing from European club culture and Korean influences — including K-Hip-Hop and K-Pop — his sound translates seamlessly across club, festival, and global brand environments.
Biography
Seoul Train (J.S. Kim) is a Korean-born, Dutch-raised, London-based DJ, producer, composer, music researcher and educator working at the intersection of contemporary Korean music, Hip-Hop, electronic music and UK–Korea cultural exchange.
Adopted from South Korea and raised in the Netherlands, Seoul Train’s practice is shaped by movement between cultures. His work explores how music travels across borders, how Korean and European identities intersect, and how contemporary Korean sound can be experienced, reinterpreted and exchanged internationally.
With more than 30 years of experience in music, his practice spans performance, production, composition and recording. He has worked as a keyboardist, producer, songwriter, recording artist and DJ, performing internationally across the UK, Europe and South Korea in clubs, festivals, fashion, cultural institutions and major brand environments. His work has included the British Museum, Tate Modern and London Fashion Week, alongside projects with Samsung, Laneige, Samyang Foods and the Korea Tourism Organization.
As a producer and composer, Seoul Train works across Hip-Hop, electronic music and Korean musical traditions, combining contemporary production with a deep interest in musical heritage and cultural exchange. His practice also incorporates Korean percussion and traditional musical approaches, which he continues to explore through composition, recording and live performance.
Alongside his professional music practice, Seoul Train is a PhD candidate in Music at the University of Westminster, following an MA in Audio Production and an MMus in Ethnomusicology. His research examines Korean-European musical identities and contemporary Korean Hip-Hop through a practice-led and culturally immersive approach, connecting academic research directly with his own creative work.
This combination of artist, producer, composer and researcher informs his wider work in music education and international cultural exchange. He is co-founder of K-Global Club, an emerging platform connecting artists, producers, educators and young people between Korea and Europe through music, technology, creative education and collaboration.
Whether performing, producing, composing, researching or developing new creative programmes, Seoul Train works from the same principle: music is not simply something that crosses cultures — it is one of the ways cultures meet, change and create something new.
Background
Born Jun Seok Kim, Seoul Train is a Korean adoptee raised in the Netherlands and now based in London. He is a composer, self-produced artist, DJ and multi-instrumentalist.
Seoul Train played his first note on the piano when he was six. He knew then that music would play an important role in his life. He received Classical training until he was twelve and moved on to Jazz / Improv. He discovered Hip-Hop early on and felt an instant connection and drive. From Tribe to Wu-Tang to UGK, he took it all in like a sponge. He was inspired by the variety of styles and growing up he felt he could relate to what they rapped about. When he was seventeen he debuted as an MC on the big stage of the Racism Beat It festival near Amsterdam. Then in 1997, during a student exchange to Canada, Seoul Train recorded his first demo tape with the Bomb Shelta Association out of Toronto. He also learned how to DJ, a skill that would come in handy later.
After seeing a live Hip-Hop band play at a festival something clicked and Seoul Train thought it would be cool to combine playing keys with his love for Hip-Hop and MC’ing. So when he was asked to join the band TrackAddicts in 2001 he did not hesitate. The musicians turned out to be the band that was playing that day!
TrackAddicts turned out to be a national success. The band spent several years on the road and recorded two albums: “Handgrenades and Butter” and “RockstarFunk.” Later, a collection of songs from both albums was released in the U.S. by WeFunk Records. TrackAddicts went on to play almost every festival and venue in the Netherlands and beyond, ranging from playing with the Holland Symfonia orchestra to B’estival in Romania. It was during this time that Seoul Train produced his first track: “If I would be…” was subsequently picked up by MTV Europe to promote the VMAs with the Dress Like A Star competition.
Seoul Train, using the MC moniker Shogun at the time, released the “Shogun War Chant” double A-side single on 12” vinyl in 2003. Well received by the press he then opened for Jeru Damaja and later shared stage with Wu-Tang Clan, Bilal and DITC. As part of a cultural Hip-Hop exchange with the Czech Republic he took part in the “From Amsterdam to Praha” project, appearing on three tracks on the album and in the documentary film.
In 2004, after a TrackAddicts show, the resident DJ had forgotten his crates and Seoul Train rocked his first crowd with just a laptop, a collection of MP3s and a copy of Traktor. Soon after, he was asked to play a number of events for the Dutch Basketball Association NBBB alongside members of Dutch R&B group Dignity.
In 2008 the band split up, and Seoul Train worked with a number of Dutch and U.S. artists until moving to the UK with his wife in 2011 to study and work there. During his studies he picked up DJ’ing again and started a journey to rediscover his Korean heritage. He had also reunited with his Korean family by then. He became a specialist in Korean Hip-Hop and R&B and started playing high profile events in the Netherlands and throughout the UK and Europe, including London Fashion Week, the Changwon K-Pop World Festival in Dublin, Ireland and a K-Pop party in Tallinn, Estonia. In light of this pivot in his career, he decided to make Seoul Train his artist name as well.
Next to producing, writing and working towards a PhD at the University of Westminster, continuing the work he started during his second Master’s degree in Ethnomusicology from SOAS, Seoul Train started private tutoring, giving workshops at youth club DEVAS Club and at the Brit School, providing consultancy and designing studios. Since then he has helped build and tune OnDaBeat Studios in Ealing and Wandsworth as well as for record label startup Coolio Productions.
In 2022, Seoul Train composed the music for the “Hot Hanbok & Cool Glass” fashion show at the International Festival of Glass, Birmingham. The documentary of this show won Best Documentary at the Korea International Short Film Festival 2023 in Seoul and the Busan New Wave Short Film Festival in Busan, both in South Korea.
He was also cast as a shamanic drummer in “Kut”, a short film by Insook Chappell and played the drums in “Surviving Strangers”, a theatre play by Inyoung Lee.
In 2024, next to solidifying his international reputation for his high-impact sets across club, festival, brand and cultural events, Seoul Train started a PhD in Music at the University of Westminster, researching to what extent authenticity can be re- or even deconstructed without losing sight of what is (perceived) real as a Dutch Hip-Hop artist of South Korean descent.
On NYE 2026, Seoul Train will be headline DJ at the K-Pop Festival in Budapest at BOK Hall (8K capacity), ringing in the new year in style!
Besides his studies he is currently creating new material and touring the UK.
Links
Fresh Off The Plane Productions Limited Website