My name is Kwaito Kunisada. I'm an artist and music producer.
Creation as always been my desire. When I moved to South Africa in 2014, my big cousin introduced me to music production. I was immediately hooked. The next year I began high-school and met some amazing people who shared my passion for music. Around 2017, we created our first rap group, began recording songs and did our first live performance. But coming up with artist names wasn't easy. My first attempt was '2K', referring to my name and birthyear. I soon changed it to 'Kwaito', when my other cousin and fellow rapper, Ruthless Carlos, introduced me to the South African genre Kwaito. I was so inspired by the music that the name stuck despite the comments I got in school about it being like calling myself 'hip-hop'.
In 2023 I began learning Japanese to better understand the art and culture of the country which had amazed me ever since I picked up my first Dragon Ball manga when I was 8. I came across wood prints by the Japanese artist Utagawa Kunisada who was an important figure during the Edo period. During this time he published illegal artworks, risking imprisonment. His passion for art reminded me of the beginnings of hip-hop during the 80s, when producers would illegally sample records and turn them into hip-hop masterpieces. Utagawa Kunisada's story resonated with me to the extent, that I chose to take on his first name, Kwaito being the family name.
