Boots ’n Cats: The scientific secrets of beatboxing

Twenty Thousand Hertz

Dallas Taylor

Music, Design, Arts, Music Commentary

4.8 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 10 December 2018

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Beatboxing began as an imitation of a drum machine, but over the decades it has evolved as a means to emulate any number of percussive sounds. Now beatboxing is being studied by scientists who are fascinated by the vocal dexterity of artists. By examining beatboxing scientists are hoping to unlock mysteries behind language formation, brain function, and the capacity of humans to recreate sound. Featuring Hip Hop Artist and Beat Boxer, Baba Israel and USC Engineering Professor, Shri Narayanan. Twenty Thousand Hertz is hosted by Dallas Taylor and produced out of the studios of Defacto Sound. Check out Shri Narayanan and his SPAN team’s MRI videos of beatboxers at sail.usc.edu/span/beatboxingproject Follow Dallas on Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn. Watch our video shorts on YouTube, and join the discussion on Reddit and Facebook. Set up a monthly, recurring donation at 20k.org/donate. Episode transcript, music, and credits can be found here: https://www.20k.org/episodes/bootsncats Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to 20,000 Hertz. I'm Dallas Taylor.
0:04.1	Hip-hop has arguably been the most influential music genre of our generation.
0:13.0	And beatboxing has played a critical role. It's a musical art form that's allowed people to create and express themselves anywhere.
0:28.1	In a party, on the street, at school, beatboxing is free, and without it, we might not have some of the music we have today.
0:39.2	The beatboxer you just heard is Baba Israel. I'm a hip-hop artist. I'm a beatboxer you just heard is Baba Israel.
0:43.6	I'm a hip-hop artist. I'm a beatboxer, an MC, spoken word artist.
0:46.6	I'm a theater maker, educator. I do a lot of different stuff.
0:50.5	Baba grew up in New York City in the 80s, during the rise of hip-hop.
0:55.7	I have a very, very clear memory of listening to the radio. I remember Dougie Fresh, his song, The Show, came on. It was the first time I'd heard recorded beatboxing.
1:06.8	It just blew me away. I was so fascinated by it.
1:12.6	It just had this different quality.
1:14.6	It was so live and percussive and it really made an impression on me.
1:18.6	And then soon after that, I started to encounter beatboxing in my school, in my elementary school,
1:25.6	and there was a kid in my class who claimed
1:28.1	to be Dougie Fresh's cousin. This was never confirmed, but he could do the clicks like Dougie
1:33.6	Fresh, so I hung out with him, and he started to teach me a little bit about beatboxing.
1:48.5	Beatboxing in the way we think about it didn't really appear out of nowhere.
1:51.6	It was really a mimicking of a famous drum machine.
1:57.4	With the development of the TR808 and the 909 and these drum machines,
2:00.1	which the slang term at that time was beatbox.
2:08.2	The Roland TR-808 rhythm composer came out in 1980, and it's become incredibly iconic.
2:12.2	So, you know, in that song where they say flashes on the beatbox. He's not actually talking about beatbox.
	...

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