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Coming out of the beatbox
The Indonesian hip hop scene just turned a new leaf with the launch of Indonesian Beatboxing Community (IBC) at the Goethe Institute Indonesia last month
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The Indonesian hip hop scene just turned a new leaf with the launch of Indonesian Beatboxing Community (IBC) at the Goethe Institute Indonesia last month.
The event actually wasn't meant to happen, but Mando (short for Mandolini), a beatboxer winner from Germany had come to Indonesia to promote the film Love, Peace and Beatbox that was screened in Europe on Screen 2008.
"The hipness that Mando brought through Europe on Screen 2008 triggered us to speak up because we have kept our community underground for many years. I'm so happy to discover that the art of beatbox is really appreciated internationally, and the feeling of excitement is contagious here in Indonesia," said Billy alias Badabox to The Jakarta Post recently. Billy has co-founded the community along with Indra Azis and Tito of music group Fade to Black.
The excitement aptly describes the almost 400 people who came to watch the movie on Oct. 30 and the spontaneous jam session that followed later that night in Goethe Institute.
During the session, Mando accepted the challenge of judging a beatbox battle between 10 people. The beatboxers showcased their best skills imitating any kind of sound. They even imitated the music produced from the turntable, played by DJ Rencong who had a gig that night.
One participant, Santo, even managed to combine a traditional Betawi song Jali-Jali into his act.
Surprisingly, three members of the audience jumped up and staged a cool breakdance. The crowd was so amazed and clapped nonstop, watching performances that usually are seen only in Harlem or Berlin.
"I never thought an Indonesian audience would be so open and accept me so enthusiastically. To meet local beatboxers and have the chance to jam with them was an incredible experience for me. I could continue jamming and beatboxing till dawn with them, if only I didn't have to return to Berlin tomorrow morning," Mando said, adding that it was truly a night to remember.
Actually the community has already existed since 2007 under the name Jakarta Beatboxing Community (JBC).
It was created by Billy via the Internet -- Friendster -- due to his difficulty in finding a sparring partner to practice beatboxing with in the real world.
"My father didn't like my enthusiasm for beatboxing. Sometimes when I was making noises, he would throw shoes at me and tell me to stop. But I'm sure there are many people out there who are just like me and need friends to share this uncommon passion with," Billy said, who also won Rp 6 million (US$500) for performing beatbox in a television reality show.
After his television stint made him famous, Billy became acquainted with Tito (a member of a famous Indonesian hip hop group, Fade to Black).
Their friendship blossomed through Friendster and their idealism spurned them to reach out to more youngsters with the same passion through Facebook. So many people from outside of Jakarta joined, they changed their name to the Indonesian Beatboxing Community.
The art of exploring the human voice by imitating various sounds of instruments (especially musical instruments), creating an entire harmony known as beatbox -- also called vocal percussion -- actually had first entered Indonesian music in the late 1980s.
That era was famous for breakdancing, rapping, the Police Academy series (remember Larvel Jones from the series who always imitated various sounds?) and the famous "Don't Worry Be Happy" jazz musician, Bobby Mc Ferrin, with his ability to scat.
Iwa K, a famous Indonesian hip hop singer at that time included beatboxing as a special part of his albums.
Yet the sound produced was not as complicated as it is now.
Unfortunately, beatbox was not the "main course" back then. On the contrary, other hip hop cultural elements, such as breakdancing, rapping and "bombing" the wall (graffiti) have now spread widely into everyday culture, even blending with the fashion industry. Beatbox as an element slowly jaded into the background.
It is possible that this disappearance had something to do with the adoption of beatbox from western cultures into ours.
Back in the 1980s, history tells us that beatbox found its place on the streets of the U.S. where many African-American communities were found.
They started singing and busting some moves. They couldn't afford to purchase musical instruments or turntables to accompany these moves so they began imitating the musical sounds instead.
Since that time, the beatbox culture has spread its wings to European music scenes and has mushroomed rapidly in the everyday life of European society.
In 2005 a beatboxing world championship was held in Leipzig, Germany, and participants came from all over the world, including Tom Thumb & Joel Turner (Australia), White Noise (Ireland), Roxorloops (Belgium), Poizunus (Canada) and Faith SFX (UK)
The problem was that the Indonesian hip hop scene didn't have the support it needed in order to grow.
"In our society back then, many hip hop musicians considered beatbox only as an added value to their performances and didn't take it seriously. They preferred to be known as rappers or hip hop musicians rather than beatboxers.
"That's why our hip hop culture never released an album of only beatbox. Probably they were afraid of the response they might get from the market," Tito, who works in a tech-company, said.
"But for me, I'd rather perform beatbox live on stage than for a demo. It is much more fun to see someone perform beatbox live, to know that human beings can create such sound, using only their mouth and voices. It's awesome!" said Tito who prefers to be called a beatboxer than a rapper.
But now things have changed. The Indonesian hip hop music scene has felt the breeze of beatbox through Mando's performance.
Indra Azis, a jazz musician and music lecturer in Pelita Harapan University and private Islamic university Al Falah, said they had been blessed with a sidedish from Europe on Screen 2008 -- they could meet Mando.
"I love the human voice and how one can create something unique from it always amazes me. That's why I fell in love with beatbox. And to meet Billy and Tito at this event was an eye-opening experience.
"It's my wake-up call to a long forgotten dream. I documented what happened that night. Hopefully one day we can use this to make another version of Love, Peace & Beatbox from Indonesia. But one thing is for sure, I'd like to make a teaching video so that anyone can learn beatboxing by following instructions on the video. That's what I did the first time I saw beatboxing," Indra said.
Now The Indonesian Beatboxing Community currently has 100 members. Indra, Billy and Tito continue their struggle to promote beatboxing as part of Indonesia's music scene.
"We're trying to gather as many members as we can through Facebook. We also are planning to have the first IBC meeting, so that we can know each other beyond the (Facebook) wall. Who knows, in the future we might send an Indonesian voice to participate in a world beatbox championship and become the next Mando," Tito said with big wide smile.
Fingers crossed, y'all!
