beatbox

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   A type of electronic percussion device.

   • Self-styled 'black gentleman vampire' who followed his cousin in to hip-hop by rapping in front of a beatbox for his first shows on Long Island, New York.
   • But by 1980 Fenley had collaborated with Mark Freedman on the high-energy, repetitive sound score for Energizer by manipulating a beatbox, the omnipresent instrument of late disco music.
   • Hip-hop took the language and made it graffiti—it was music video on a wall with a beatbox blowing its subwoofers next to it.
2. 2

   To use one’s mouth, lips, tongue, voice, etc. as a percussive instrument to create beats…

   To use one’s mouth, lips, tongue, voice, etc. as a percussive instrument to create beats and rhythms for music.

   • Hell, why do so many of us still breakdance? Why do so many of us still beatbox? The two most successful rappers to come out of Chicago, Common Sense and The Brat, had nothing to do with the city-wide hip-hop scene.
   • Before you knew it, everyone, everywhere, was trying to copy Fresh's technique, and every rapper on the planet seemed intent on proving they could beatbox (with varying, occasionally embarrassing degrees of success).
   • Turull, group elder, and Wright, the youngest, play off each other extraordinarily well, be it on cajon or when the latter jumps up to beatbox against Marina’s lyrical sidesteps.

The neighborhood