MANE MAN: Nicol Kanai

While trying to evade the quicksand of YouTube one night I bumped into today’s featured MANE MAN Nicol.  Nicol hails from Japan, has a great sense of humor and was happy to talk with us about his experience with his dreads.  Check him out!

Tell us about yourself.

First, my name is Nicol Kanai I’m mix blood type Black and Asian so we call it Blasian lol. I’m from Japan cause my father is working in Japan and he is chef I don’t look like high school student but YES I AM. I’m 16 years old. In Japan dreadlocks people are unusual so it’s hard to keep locking and grow my dreads ;(.  I found a salon in Japan but it’s really, really expensive, like $500-$1000 to get dreads.  But, when I was 12 I saw one musician named Michael Franti and his dreads are so cooool! And I thought I wish I could try dreads and now my wish has come true

I loc’ed my hair about 1 year ago before that I had an Afro .  I tried Line on my head, Mohawk hair and so on ….

Nicol with a few different styles.

I use organic shampoo to wash my dreads and i use (Jamaican) Mango and Lime & Olive moisturizing product and aloe mist for dreads.

My homies are not pure blood type so they said to me “that’s better  “you look natural now”, but Japanese people always said to me, “How did you do that!? How did you wash your hair !? Can I touch !?  It’s always ends with a question mark. And I’m at a Japanese high school now and teachers are annoying! (They say) “Cut your hair!! If you are not gonna cut your hair, you are going to quit school!”  And I said to them fuckers that this is natural for us! This is us…don’t you get it!  Why can’t I show my culture? You guys don’t know how mix (people) feel!  Now teachers don’t say about my hair anymore   But there is thing that I got to do …I have to score more than 50 on test, never miss or be late for school, etc.  But I’m ok with that

How to show my dreads on video   Cause video and real (life) is different so I tried to show my dread like they would like in person