How Beat Boxing Changed The Way We Listen To Music

« Back to all posts in Ology

1 Comment

How Beat Boxing Changed The Way We Listen To Music

On Jan 20, 2012

Percussion has always been a primary foundation to most forms of music, and while various cultures have developed their own instruments to produce unique sounds, one of the most skilled instruments is something that humans had all along—the mouth (yeah, it sounds lame, but that’s the truth).

Beat boxing has been a popular substitute for drums, especially in street performances in hip-hop, and has developed over the years to adapt to digital styles that have come with innovations in physical instruments. Most people figure the artform to be the product of some street corner some at point in the 20 Century, but variations of the practice date back to India and China several thousand years ago. Obviously, there’s no relation to hip-hop here, but it’s important to know the origin.

Beat boxing found it’s home in hip-hop in the early 80s to match the development of drum machines which came to be the central tool alongside turntables in crafting hip-hop instrumentals. Pioneers like Doug E. Fresh, Rahzel, Biz Markie and others perfected the form to where, at times, it was a near match to digital percussion, and set a global platform that would later be carried on by emcees like Matisyahu and Kenny Muhammad. International contests are held each year in various circles, and the community as a whole has grown to become a genre in itself, mimicking aspects of not only hip-hop, but drum and bass, electronic, dub step and even tribal-based music.

The end result is that as beat-making equipment such as Akai’s MPC series or computer software continue to diversify and become more versatile, so do devoted beat boxers, exploring techniques of the vocal chords and intonations, and matching the progress of myriad genres with a skill more deserving of applause than that of any machine.