Although Tokona-X was born in Kanagawa, he moved to Aichi, where he built his rap career. There are small parts of his history available online which make interesting reading, but don’t actually tell us much; especially if we’re not so familiar with Japan. In his lyrics, I understand part of the message about his hood from things I know to be true in English rap music, like Tokona talking about his hood must mean the area he grew up in. But in this case, it’s an area he moved to, so I have to question if that’s really his hood. I guess because he feels connected to that area, then that is his ‘hood’. Continue reading →