• 
• 
• 

Boxcon - International Beatbox Convention Live Review by Craig Montana

Beatboxing is one of the strange, mysterious elements of Hip Hop Culture. The skill of making music with your mouth, and making it look effortless, is a truly underrated talent. A talent that was celebrated at South bank's Queen Elizabeth Hall on Friday 18th - Sunday 20th April 2008. Beatboxer's from all over the world got together to showcase their skills at the annual Beatbox convention. Taking part in shows, workshops and seminars. (Seminars!) It was great to see this art form being taken seriously. The two days activity was provided by the good folks at the Ether Festival. The Ether Festival combines music, technology and performance to create weeks worth of creative and innovative live concerts. Most of the stuff, seminars, workshops and open mics were free of charge to the general public. SAFE!

So we got to the Queen Elizabeth Hall around 2pm, not really knowing what to expect. Would anyone turn up? Would it be a messy cacophony of randomly hurled beats, breaks and snares, where Beatboxer's jostle for time to shine in front of a disinterested audience? We were pleasantly surprised to find a very civilized and rather large group of individuals of mixed ages silently captivated by the sounds emanating from the stage. The whole event ran smoothly. With a host on hand to call up each Beatbox artist in turn, a soundman on hand to make sure the levels where constantly to the artists liking and an open minded and accommodating crowd keen to hear Beatboxers of varying standards.

Straight outta Germany beat boxer Eliot rocked the crowd with the help of Inja (Delegates Of Culture). Inja (a fresh MC out of the ends that are Cambridge) spat the illest and cleanest freestyle I've heard in a while. Any 'roadman' can come in and spit profanities over a beat but few can freestyle without using the F & S words…nice touch Ininge!

One of the highlights of the event was the collaboration between renowned Beatboxer Shlomo (Foreign Beggars) and the dub master Mad Professor. Shlomo, the Southbank Center's artist in residence, has done Grammy-nominated work with Bjork and is known all over the shop as being at the top of his field. Mad Professor is known for his remixes of Massive Attack, Jamiroquai, and The Orb. The pair combined their talents in a one off show using live mixing, looping and improvisation.

The grand finale of the Beatbox convention were the performances from some of the best Beatboxing artists in the world. Performers came from Japan, UK, Switzerland, and the US, mixing styles and genres of music to create an amazing celebration of Beatboxing. The concert also featured a performance from all female Beatboxing crew The Boxettes. A personal highlight for me was seeing Pete Box for the first time. I have heard about this guy through the normal mediums, Myspace bullitens, facbook etc, but was really impressed with his performance. Check him out: PeteBox Video @ Smirnoff Electric cabaret 2008

All in all a good cheap day out for the whole family to enjoy not just the teenage hip hop fanatic!

Words Craig Montana
Images by AirRat

www.yo-ebs.com

• 
• 
•