Rankin' Taxi

Rankin' Taxi is one of those artists who quietly became a cornerstone of Japanese reggae without ever chasing a spotlight — and honestly, that's exactly why he's worth knowing. Born in 1953 in Yokohama, he came up in a port city that had a natural openness to outside sounds, and he took that Jamaican rhythm and made it say something real in Japanese. What sticks out to me is that he never softened the politics out of it; reggae was always protest music at heart, and he seemed to understand that the genre only works if you're actually saying something. Decades in, he's still at it — you can find him on social media, still vocal, still himself. That kind of consistency from someone in their seventies is genuinely rare. No reinvention gimmicks, no genre pivots. Just the same gravel-voiced conviction he started with.

Rankin' Taxi is a Japanese reggae singer born on February 9, 1953, in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture. Known for performing in Japanese while addressing social themes through the reggae format, he has maintained a consistent presence in Japan's reggae scene for decades. He is active on the social platform X (formerly Twitter) under the handle @rankintaxi.

Name (English)

Rankin' Taxi

Name (Japanese)

ランキンタクシー

Reading

らんきんたくしー

Born

February 9, 1953 (age 73)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aquarius / Snake (巳)

Origin

Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan

Occupation

Singer

Motto

Private

• Xhttps://x.com/rankintaxi
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%A9%E3%83%B3%E3%82%AD%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%82%BF%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B7%E3%83%BC

Tags

• From Kanagawa Prefecture
• Singer

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.