Born in 1894 as the second daughter of nine children to a father and mother who were master carpenters. From a young age, Tsutaki Yokomatsu Asaji loved the shamisen, nagauta and kiyomoto-bushi, began taking shamisen lessons under Kineya Ise around the age of seven. At the age of eleven, she volunteered to become a geisha at a tea house in Yoshiwara.[2][3][4] When the tea house went out of business, she moved to Yanagibashi. At the age of 21, she transferred to the okiya Kiyokomatsu, and at the age of 23, she became independent and ran her own okiya, Tsuta Kiyokomatsu.[5][6][7]
Her home in Yonezawa-cho, Nihonbashi-ku, was destroyed in the Tokyo air raids on March 10, 1945, she evacuated to Soka-machi, Kita-Adachi-gun, Saitama Prefecture. About two years after the war, the okiya began to reopen, Tsutaki Yokomatsu Asaji commuted from Soka to Yanagibashi wearing monpe (work pants). It is said that she would do her makeup at a friend's house near Yanagibashi before going out to the okiya.[8][9][10] Around 1949, she rebuilt her home in Yanagibashi.[11] In 1989, she was awarded the Yellow Ribbon Medal as a successor to the Tokiwazu style of music. She had begun studying Tokiwazu around the age of 27, inspired by the performance of Tokiwazu Mojio in the kabuki play Kanadehon Chūshingura.[12] At the age of 88, Tsutaki Yokomatsu Asaji was already the oldest active geisha. Even at the age of 100, she performed at banquets once a week, and continued to do so until four months before her death at the age of 102.[13][14]