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What's lacking in hip hop music these days is learning to go with the flow.
People need to just let go.
I'm surrounded by guys who stab people or are drug addicts.
But we chose not to follow that path,
and decided to rap instead.
Right now, I feel like only hip hop fans listen to hip hop music.
I want to change that.
I'm Ty from VICE. In Kita ward, Tokyo, you'll see housing projects along the Sumida river.
There's a crew of hip hop musicians based there called the Riverside Mobb.
Drawing particular attention is a rapper named Kohh,
partly because of his little brother, "Lil Kohh."
When Lil Kohh was in the 6th grade, they jokingly made a video called "Young Forever".
It became a big hit on YouTube.
- Is there anything you want to tell your listeners? - I have nothing to say.
Who are they?
And what drives them to rap?
We wanted to learn more about this underground hip hop scene that they'd built.
So we headed to Oji to check them out.
I was able to see Kohh and his friends doing their thing in their natural habitat.
That's Sumida river over there. Behind us is Adachi ward.
And Kita ward is in front of us. The river divides the two wards.
You see that housing project over there? That's where Lil Kohh and I live.
When I was in middle school, my friends and I drew some graffiti on that wall.
Me and about 15 friends. We drew on it for days on end.
The police caught us and made us repaint it all white.
You see where it's nice and white?
- Oh yeah, I can see where you painted over.
When I was little, my mom was hardly ever home.
Even when she did come home, she would go out partying at night.
But grandma was always there.
She used to give me piggy back rides and put me to sleep.
I feel like she raised me. Her and grandpa. I'm really close to them.
She just doesn't feel like a mom to me.
I don't really want to talk to her.
Maybe I'm still rebelling against her.
Talking to Kohh, I noticed that he mentioned his mother a lot.
So I decided to meet her in person.
Kohh's father died when he was young.
His mother was a drug addict at the time.
He'd written some songs about those days,
and so I wanted to hear her side of the story.
- When did you move to this housing project?
When Kohh was only about 1 year old.
- Was it a big change of environment for you?
Oh yes. We suddenly became really poor, and I couldn't do anything for Kohh.
I was mentally unstable from losing my husband.
I was seeing a shrink at the time.
The house was a huge mess. I couldn't clean up.
I couldn't cook for him.
I was completely reliant on my mother.
It was an extremely difficult time for us.
I would always get into fights with his grandma.
It was just a big mess.
- Have you listened to all his songs? - Of course, every single one.
- Is there a song or lyric that's stuck with you?
I forgot the name of the song but he made a song about his father.
And about me.
It went something like, "Hey Daddy are you listening up there?"
He also rapped about how I used to do drugs.
Those songs have stuck with me. I realized how lonely he must have been.
It really got to me.
I think there are others out there with similar experiences.
I wasn't home a lot when I was little.
I would spend time at friends' houses. They would take care of me like their own.
The projects are like little towns.
Within that, I have my group of friends.
Just because you live in the projects doesn't necessarily mean you're poor.
But I felt that a lot of households seemed to be struggling to get by.
After speaking to his mom, we headed to manager 318's studio.
Kohh introduced us to his circle of friends.
They all share some common ground as rappers,
and dream of becoming stars one day.
In short, they seem to have found their identity through hip-hop.
They're more like family than friends.
Even the younger ones want to rap now.
The local hip hop scene is growing.
We call ourselves the Riverside Mobb,
because the Sumida river and this area defines us.
We're proud of who we are.
Born and raised in the same Oji neighborhood is producer 318 who manages Kohh and the Riverside Mobb.
He's worked in the music industry for a long time,
so he's well known in the Japanese hip hop scene.
"Always talkin' 'bout money. Everybody's greedy, I ain't gonna lie."
"I'm not tellin' you what I make, but y'all are so ***' nosy."
"If you can't tell the difference between good and bad money, you're a moron."
- How did you meet Kohh?
I first got a message from him on Mixi (Japanese SNS).
I checked out his bio on his Mixi page.
It said that he was 18.
I produce music professionally, so I couldn't hook him up for cheap.
I was going to turn him down.
But I scrolled down and saw that he lived close to where I grew up.
So I decided to talk to him on the phone first.
I asked him what neighborhood he was from,
It turned out that he lived within walking distance.
So I gave him a good deal and we decided to give it a shot.
That's how it all started.
I always wanted to make music with people from the same neighborhood.
But no one made any hip hop music here.
No one even knew what black music or black culture was.
So when I met Kohh five years ago, I was thrilled.
Word got around in the neighborhood, and I think people were talking about him.
And then a bunch of other kids started contacting me from the hood.
They all wanted to rap.
Now I'm working with over a dozen local kids.
The Japanese hip-hop scene is really small.
In Japan, for some reason...
Hip hop hasn't caught on. It doesn't get shown on TV either.
I wish it was more widespread.
I want to be the one who spreads it.
Without 318, there would be no 'Kohh'.
He's like a father and big brother at the same time.
He shot all my music videos.
He's helped me with everything. I can't thank him enough.
Then there's Mony Horse. He's also from Oji, a town in Kita ward,
the same neighborhood as 318 and Kohh. He's 19 years old.
He's in all of Kohh's music videos on Youtube.
He's more or less Kohh's partner-in-crime.
When he was little, he moved here from the Phillipines.
He now lives in a housing project near Kohh.
- My mom had me when she was 17. - That's pretty young.
My mom came to Japan to work.
And my dad was a drug addict. He was on ***.
They got divorced, then she re-married a Japanese guy.
We've been living here since then.
My parents used to fight about money all the time.
When they fought, I used to run to my grandpa's house.
- Your grandpa lives here, too? - He lives in the building next to us.
Our house is over there, and my grandpa's is over here.
On the 13th floor.
Oh, someone committed suicide over there. Building no. 10.
- Yeah, I know about that.
Over there on building no. 8, do you see that net?
Somebody fell on that once. Tore into pieces.
- People tend to fall onto those nets, huh?
I wonder why. They probably jump instinctively because they're up so high.
In the end, it's all about money.
The rent here depends on the household income.
That's why a lot of foreigners, who can only get *** jobs
that don't pay very well end up living here.
I came to Japan when I was eight. I used to get bullied.
Because I'm dark skinned and Filipino.
But within six months, I overcame that by becoming the bully myself.
This is where I live. It's kinda ghetto.
This used to be my room over here. But now my mom's older brother is using it.
So now I can't use this room anymore.
- How many people live here right now? - Five people.
I've never felt lonely living in the projects.
If I was bored, I would go outside and there would be lots of kids to play with.
Or I would hit them up, and we would pick a place to hang out.
It's a whole world in itself. I think it's incredible.
That's pretty.
Living in this environment, do you ever feel like you want to leave?
Sometimes. But it feels good here. It's peaceful
There are a lot of people that commit suicide here, and it's filled with delinquents and poor people.
But so what? We don't want to glamorize it. That's just the way it is.
I just happened to grow up in Oji, in the projects next to the Sumida river.
Just happened to live on the riverside.
Simply put, it's my home, so I like it here.
I think everyone takes pride in wherever they're from.
That night, I heard that Lil Kohh and the Riverside Mobb were doing a show in Shibuya.
I went to go check it out.
I was eighteen when I first performed in front of a crowd.
About twenty to thirty of my friends from the hood came to see me.
I got so nervous that I forgot my lyrics.
I paused. But my friends started singing the lyrics for me.
That moved me.
For me, performing at shows remind me
that I'm alive.
I want to stand out.
A lot of the older kids are in gangs, stab people with knives, are drug addicts...
Those guys are all around us.
But we chose a different path. We decided to focus on hip hop.
"I love naked girls."
"That guy pisses me off, that skinny, tatted up playboy."
"Why do all the hoes love him? It doesn't make any sense."
"He thinks he's the *** 'cus he's on the cover of a magazine."
"I hear he always rocks the fly ***."
"Versace watch, the gold tooth."
"Belt is Gucci, spendin' too much money."
"I saw him wearing Coogi in his music video."
"It's so lame."
"It's so boring, it pisses me off. So I post comments about him online, to spread lies."
"All those perverted, dumb lyrics."
"All those *** lyrics, I hate him. But I gotta admit, I'm kinda jealous of him."
It's hard to tell what the average person thinks of them.
But growing up together in the projects,
they've developed a strong bond, and are breathing new life into the hip hop world as we speak.
I love the haters. I need more haters.
Seriously, thanks to all the haters.
If you imagine what you want in life, it'll happen.
People should just do whatever they want to do.