Ask HN: Recommendations for language when building API?

Hello all,

I am building a backend API and I have free reign to choose a language to build it in. I know it will deal with async and I heavily prefer statically typed languages, so those are my two preferences.

I work as a C++ programmer but obviously no way I am using that. I am a big fan of Rust, but I know async is painful and why put up with borrow checker when GC is fine.

The two I am leaning towards is Go and Kotlin, but very interested in opinions. My experience in either is basically 0