Don't skip this beat

Beat-boxers practise their craft at gigs

The skyrocketing popularity of hip-hop in India has given the four basic elements of the culture - DJing, MCing, B-boying and graffiti - a corresponding fillip. A case in point is the fact that the World B-boying Championship was held in Mumbai last year, for the very first time. Rappers like Divine have also become household names now. Gully Boy, of course, gave the music a mainstream identity. But there is one aspect of hip-hop that hasn't been given its fair share of spotlight in the country. Beat-boxing is still a stream that many Indians are unfamiliar with, says Gaurav Gambhir, an exponent of the art form, adding that a beat-boxing competition he will be judging this weekend aims to alter that equation.

Called The Battle of the Beatboxers, the event at a Lower Parel venue involves 96 artistes from across the country fighting it out for the top two positions. Rawduct, an events management company, is hosting it as an extension of a hip-hop event they organised at Worli recently. "The main aim of the competition is to give the veterans in the scene a chance to win a bigger prize than usual, and also to encourage newcomers to take up the art form," Gambhir says, adding that the winning contestant will get '10,000 and gifts from the event's sponsors.

But he also reiterates that beat-boxing is still in a nascent phase in the country. "There is a tight-knit community in Bangalore who started organising their own events two years ago. But people here are otherwise restricted to performing at college festivals, which don't even pay sometimes. The scene in Mumbai is such that everyone is doing well individually, but there's a lack of a proper community. Things are slowly starting to change, though. Two people recently started a group on YouTube for example, where they help other beat-boxers create and upload videos," Gambhir explains.

He adds that a couple of ways in which beat-boxing can progress in the country is if the artistes start integrating themselves better with the indie music circuit, and if they become a part of Bollywood movies. "These are two huge avenues, and beat-boxers need to play at big festivals like NH7 Weekender to get commercial recognition," he says. The upcoming competition is a step forward in gaining that very recognition. Gambhir says that contrary to popular belief, you don't really need any special skills to beat-box.

Gaurav Gambhir

All you need is the drive for it. "When I started out, people would say that there are all these music theories you need to learn. But it's nothing like that. Even if you simply visit YouTube and learn the basics, you can easily pick it up with time. All you need to have is a basic sense of rhythm and tempo, apart from time and patience," he says of an art form that emerged in New York's Harlem neighbourhood in the early 1980s, but has only just started creating ripples in the Indian market.

On January 12, 12 pm onwards
At Lilt, Mathuradas Mill Compound, Lower Parel.
Log on to insider.in
Cost Rs 500

The origins story

Drum machines in the early 1980s were also called beat boxes, and were an essential element of a rapper's repertoire. But sometimes, the artistes didn't have one. Beat-boxing thus came about as a way for humans to imitate those machines, so that they could lay the beats for a musician to rap over. They came to be called "human beat boxes".

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