Beatboxing

"Beat Box" redirects here. For the Art of Noise song, see Beat Box (song).

An example of beatboxing

Biz Markie beatboxing

Shlomo beatboxing

Beatboxing is a form of vocal percussion which primarily involves the art of producing drum beats, rhythm, and musical sounds using one's mouth, lips, tongue, voice, and more. It may also involve singing, vocal imitation of turntablism, the simulation of horns, strings, and other musical instruments. Beatboxing is connected with hip hop culture although it is not limited to hip hop music.

History of beatboxing

Prehistory

Vocal imitation of percussion sounds has existed for a very long time. One tradition is thought to have originated in India several thousand years ago: the tradition of bol, and the Chinese developed Kouji, a type of vocal performing arts. These had little relation with hip hop, however, and have no direct connection to modern Eastern Hip Hop. Some African traditions use performers' bodies (clapping, stomping) to make musical sounds to maintain a steady musical pace. They made sounds using their mouths by loudly breathing in and out, which is done in beatboxing today.

Hip hop origins

Beatboxing in hip hop originated in 1980s. Its early pioneers include Doug E. Fresh, Buffy from the Fat Boys & Wise (Stetsasonic) . Credits of the three include Doug E. Fresh for being the self proclaimed first "human beatbox,", Buffy for helping perfecting the art & Wise for taking it to a level that inspired other individuals to want to be a human beatbox. Wise with his human turntable technique inspired a whole new fan base of human beatboxers. The term "beatboxing" is derived from the mimicry of the first generation of drum machines, then known as beatboxes.

Modern beatboxing

Beatboxing's current popularity is thanks in part to the likes of artists like Rahzel, Kenny Muhammad, and Matisyahu who have promoted the art form across the world. It's also thanks largely to websites such as Humanbeatbox.com, and YouTube where many beatboxing videos have several million hits.

In 2005 the world championship of beatboxing was organised in Leipzig, Germany. The participants came from all over the world, and included Tom Thumb, and Joel Turner (Australia), White Noise (Ireland), Roxorloops (Belgium), Poizunus (Canada), Faith SFX (UK). After several heats of beatbox battles, the final between Roxorloops (Belgium) and Joel Turner (Australia) was decided. The five judges had a difficult time picking a winner and called for an extra round after which Joel Turner won the world championship.

Notation

As with other musical disciplines, some form of musical notation or transcription may sometimes be useful in order to describe beatbox patterns or performances. Sometimes this takes the form of ad hoc phonetic approximations, but is occasionally more formal.

Standard Beatbox Notation (SBN) was created by Mark Splinter and Gavin Tyte of Humanbeatbox.com in 2006 as an alternative to International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) transcription, which had been used sparingly before then.

Selected beatbox discography

This list is a selected discography of commercial releases which are mostly/entirely beatbox-based or are otherwise notable/influential records in the history of beatboxing and its popularisation.

1980s

• The Fat Boys - The Fat Boys (1984)
• Chris z.a
• Doug E. Fresh & Slick Rick - The Show, b/w La Di Da Di (1985)
• Wise (Stetsasonic) - Just Say Stet (1985), Faye (1986) & Stet Troop 88 (1988)
• Biz Markie - Goin' Off (includes beatbox track "Make The Music With Your Mouth, Biz") (1988)
• Vanilla Ice - Havin' A Roni - from To The Extreme (1990)

1990s

• Rahzel - Make The Music 2000 (1999)

2000s

• Click Tha Supah Latin - Square Won (2001)
• Kyle "Scratch" Jones - The Embodiment of Instrumentation (2002)
• Killa Kela - The Permanent Marker (2002)
• Rahzel - Rahzel's Greatest Knockouts! (2004)
• Björk - Medúlla (2004)
• Joel Turner - These Kids (2004)
• Biz Markie - Make the Music with your Mouth, Biz (2006)
• Kid Beyond - Amplivate (2006)

See also

• List of beatboxers
• Hip hop music
• Konnakol
• Scat singing
• Puirt a beul

External links

• www.ibeatbox.com "Breath Control: History of the Human Beat Box" official web site