Japan's DJ Rinoka bobs to the beat as a child prodigy techno artist

Nine-year-old DJ Rinoka performs at Tokyo Dome before a Yomiuri Giants baseball game on May 24, 2026, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

TOKYO — Never mind she isn’t old enough to get into a club.

Japanese DJ Rinoka still is a celebrated techno artist at just 9 years old. And she’s the world’s youngest DJ, listed as such in Guinness when she was 6.

“It’s fun when people get excited at the live performances,” she told The Associated Press recently.

She decided to become a DJ after seeing Amelie Lens and Nina Kraviz on YouTube when she was 4. She thought they were so cool she asked for a Pioneer DDJ-200 machine for Christmas.

“I like a cool, fast, intense style,” she said in the interview, while wearing a cap with her own logo.

DJ Rinoka has other typically childlike interests like her pet gecko and a stuffed animal collection, including a toy dog called Korochan that accompanies her everywhere, including on stage. The gecko stays at home.

DJ Rinoka has a busy schedule, performing at Tokyo’s professional baseball team Yomiuri Giants’ games and appearing with much older DJs at events.

It’s with a total and delightful conviction that she gets the groove going, pushing and turning buttons, as she bobs her body.

DJ Rinoka doesn’t use her surname publicly, and her parents wish to remain anonymous to maintain as normal a childhood as possible for their only child.

She takes hip-hop dance lessons and enjoys crafting things out of paper and aluminum foil. She also has schoolwork.

Techno has roots in American cities like Detroit and heavily uses electronic instruments, like the now-coveted Roland machines. Its genres include the intense, hypnotic acid house that Rinoka likes.

Just about all of it has a heavy pounding beat, or kick, that makes you want to dance away your troubles.

The music has evolved and spread, and its top DJs now create music for club-goers to dance to around the world.

It’s so universal, it’s loved and understood by a young Japanese girl.

“The music will continue,” DJ Rinoka says thoughtfully.

But she doesn’t have to think too hard when asked which she would choose: being a DJ or a caretaker for a lot of geckos.

“The geckos,” she exclaimed. “They are so cute.”

Yuri Kageyama, The Associated Press