Beats

Beatboxing, the art of producing beats and sounds using one's mouth and voice, is often left out when one thinks of the word "music." It's a relatively new style of producing music and has its roots in hip-hop culture.

I am a huge fan of beatboxing because it's such a cool and easy way to make music. Well, not easy in terms of technique, but rather in terms of its portability. With your mouth as your instrument, you can produce beats and music anywhere. Beatboxing is also not limited to just hip-hop music; you can use its techniques to improvise classical pieces too if you want.

In the Asian beatboxing world, I usually watch videos by Krnfx and Hikakin. Krnfx (pronounced "Korean effects"), whose real name is Terry Im, is a Korean-Canadian beatboxer who has won the Canadian Beatbox Championship two years in a row and has also been a Beatbox Battle World Championship Finalist. He has a very clean style and is always precise in his technique. Many beatboxers blend their sounds together when they try really fast beats or multiple sounds at the same time, but you can still hear Krnfx’s individual sounds even when he speeds up his beats or adds different types of beats. He really tries to focus on perfecting his technique.

Krnfx freestyling on the stairs:

However, clean and precise isn’t the only style of beatboxing. Hikakin, a Japanese beatboxer, is famous for using beatboxing to imitate popular radio songs, video game theme songs, and classical pieces. His most viewed video on YouTube is a beatbox version of the Super Mario theme song, which has over 19 million views. Unlike Krnfx, Hikakin doesn’t put as much emphasis on advanced beatboxing skills or beatbox championships. Instead, he chooses to keep his beats simple and focus on creating melodies using beatboxing techniques. Many YouTubers argue about whether Krnfx or Hikakin is the better beatboxer, but I personally think they’re both great in their own ways. So I just sit back and enjoy the music.

Hikakin performing Super Mario:

-Sherry