The art of creating percussion and other musical sounds using parts of the mouth and voice alone, modern Beatboxing sprang to life in the 1980’s. The name comes from the fact that the percussion sounds made by Beatboxers were comparable to early electronic drum machines.
One of the first names to be associated with the art is Doug E. Fresh, who described himself as the “first human beatbox” even releasing a solo record in 1983 called “Original Human Beatbox”.
There is evidence though that the art of Beatboxing may go back as far as a few thousand years. A tradition known as bol in India defines syllables to be used in the creation of rhythms which correspond to the various strokes of classical percussion instruments. The word bol derives from “bolna”, which means ‘to speak’. There was also a tradition developed in China known as Kouji. In some African traditions performers use their bodies through clapping and stomping to make percussion type sounds as well as using their mouths by loudly breathing in and out, a technique still used in modern hip hop.
In modern times though, it is worth mentioning another pioneer of Beatboxing in the 1980’s. Leonardo Roman, also known as ‘Wise’ introduced the “human turntable” technique. Called the Stetsa-Human Mix Machine by other band members, he provided Beatboxing and other percussion sounds for the hip hop group Stetsasonic.
Beatboxing seemed to die off by the end of the 1980’s and was thought to be just another passing craze, but over ten years later with the release of Make the Music 2000, Rahzel, a member of The Roots resurrected it and now the technique seems to be here to stay.
The first Beatboxing world championships were held in Leipzig, Germany in 2005 with participants attending from all over the world. The first World Champion of Beatboxing, Joel Turner, won the competition only after having to compete in an extra round because the judges found the task of selecting a winner so difficult.