By Yasuyuki Kowa / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff WriterWhatever images may come to mind when you think of a room full of kindergarteners, a thumping techno dance floor is probably not among them. DJ Kazuhiro Abo is on a mission to change that.

As he has been doing for a decade now, the 34-year-old disc jockey from Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, recently visited a kindergarten and turned a usual day on its head.

“Everybody in this kindergarten, good morning. I’m going to play happy music with records,” said Abo, dressed entirely in black, before flat-toned sounds began to flow from speakers like a voice from a robot.

“Now, let’s happily dance together, and let’s go crazy!”

About 30 children sitting on the floor in front of him hugged their knees and initially looked puzzled. They usually sing songs such as “Anpanman no March” and “My Neighbor Totoro,” which are from animation series. But this day was going to be different.

Soon Abo’s synthesizer started pumping out deep bass rhythms as if they were synchronizing to the children’s heartbeats. Seconds later, some of the children got to their feet and began jumping up and down. After about 10 minutes, most of the kids were skipping round and round, and one of them was down on the floor and twisting like a caterpillar. Abo thinks it’s great for children to freely express themselves.

Abo’s special gig is touring daycare centers for children and kindergartens in the Tokyo metropolitan area, where he plays electronic dance music. Teachers and parents are always surprised, saying that they didn’t realize children could dance like this without being taught.

It seems that not all children like anime theme songs and nursery rhymes. So, Abo plays tracks that none of them know and creates an atmosphere where all the children there can dance freely.

This is the mission of the “Kodomo DJ” (DJ for kids).

How it all started

When Abo was a second-grade elementary school student, he lived in Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture. One day at home, he couldn’t take his eyes off the program he was watching on TV.

Abo was watching “Dance Koshien,” a segment on a high school students’ dance competition on the program “Tensai Takeshi no Genki ga Deru Terebi!” on the Nippon TV network.

What grabbed his attention was not the splendid performance of street dancing, but the DJ performing behind the students. The DJ was skillfully controlling the rotations of a vinyl record, wearing a headphone over one ear, which to the young Abo looked very cool. But more so, he thought, the DJ was like the control tower for directing the dancers.

Although both of his parents are teachers, Abo didn’t really fit in well at school. While his classmates were caught up in the voices of pop singers, Abo zeroed in on the techno pop sounds behind the vocals. He tried to describe to his friends that listening to the beats was “like listening to manga,” which they just didn’t understand.

It was around this time that Abo became determined to someday create his own music.

Acquiring the tools and skills

When he was in fourth grade, Abo began saving money to buy a synthesizer. He saved ¥500 a month of his allowance as well as his New Year’s otoshidama money. And he asked parents to give him his birthday presents in cash.

Abo finally bought a synthesizer when he was in his second year of junior high school. In the intervening years, he estimates that he created about 300 songs in his head.

Even now, he cannot forget the moment when he first set up that synthesizer over a drawer of his student desk. The next step was to start drawing out all the melodies he had been storing up. But he was puzzled. “How can I do it?” he thought.

Since he had obtained the essential tools for being a DJ, such as a turntable and a synthesizer, he set his sights on a record shop in his neighborhood, where they sold a wide variety of imported 12-inch records. He made friends with one of the clerks, who had long, dyed blond hair, a deep tan and something more important — DJ skills. Abo’s new friend taught him the basics of spinning vinyl and mixing.

He spent hours a day at the record shop, very often wearing his junior high school uniform, and sometimes ordering a delivery of ramen without telling the clerk and eating inside the shop.

The shop clerk would sometimes chastise him, saying, “Abo, you act like an old man.” But never once did he ask Abo, “Don’t you go to school?”

When Abo got into high school, he grew his music collection by skipping lunches to save the ¥500 for buying records, and spent evenings at home developing his mixing style.

Abo’s mother, Hideko, 66, who was then a high school teacher, remembered these years, saying, “From his bedroom, we could always hear the heavy-toned bass sounds. Though he got zeros on his math exams, he always insisted that he would earn his living as a DJ. I believed he could do it.”

Abo next enrolled in the Faculty of Music of Tokyo University of the Arts, expecting that there would be a countless number of others who also couldn’t fit in at school. But all the other students around him were graduates of high-level high schools. Although Abo had managed to learn DJ techniques that were impressive even for music connoisseurs, he found that he tended to choose only music that was widely acceptable. He disliked hearing preconceived opinions, such as “Oh, yeah. This music should be arranged like this.” Abo wanted to entertain others who had no such preconceived views.

In his frustration, Abo was hit by an idea. Which audience would be the most pure-minded? Wouldn’t that be children? He decided to become a DJ who could entertain and inspire children and began looking for ultimately enjoyable musical sounds.

Finding himself and his audience

Since childhood, Abo had soul-searched one question about himself thousands of times: “I’m different from other people around me. Why?”

Abo had experienced many difficulties interacting with others. For example, standing in a kitchen with his friend, he might tune out his friend’s conversation after being distracted by certain sounds he was drawn to from water running out of a faucet in front of him.

Trying to make conversation with classmates always caused a nervous sweat and nausea. This led to him being unable to attend junior high school classes for a period of time.

But after three decades, he was finally told of his problem last summer. He visited a doctor specializing in psychosomatic disorders, and was told, “You have autistic spectrum disorder tendencies and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.”

“Of course! I knew it was something like that,” he said, feeling relieved.

At the same time, he developed a new sense of purpose. He had lived being steadily bothered by a personality that had made him unable to compromise with other people’s emotions. Because he disliked being labeled in his school years and also as a DJ, he needed to find an environment where he could be accepted, like a kindergarten room with children who have no preconceived opinions. He was relieved to find out he had a development disorder.

Looking back at his life until then, even when Abo could not act in the same manner as others, it was often shrugged off with the sentiment of, “It’s all right, because you’re Abo.” Although he believed he had no special talent, he began to think that this might be a kind of talent in itself.

Fast-forward to today. Abo has received offers of work as a music producer for game software to be released this year and creating tracks for other musicians. The range of his work is expanding. He also appears at events for revitalizing local communities and to assist the mentally troubled.

During his school years, Abo could not get along with others around him, and he felt stigmatized. So, life had not been comfortable for him. But after being diagnosed, Abo’s perspective became clear. He now thinks that if people can come to understand that individuals like him can contribute to others, the world can become a much better place.

When he works as a DJ for kids, he does not play popular music, because he wants to avoid divisions between children who know the music and those who don’t. Abo encourages children to, first of all, let loose in line with their feelings.

Recently, he received a satisfying report from a kindergarten teacher who told him, “After doing the DJ dance, one of the children has made friends for the first time.”

This is DJ Abo’s reward — changing children’s lives, one dance track at a time.Speech