Vocal antics, Neil Valles and Alan De Souza

Beat boxing has long been imported to India from the West. But it’s soon catching on in the city too with youngsters taking to it. The talk of the town currently are two 20-something boys from Bandra who started beat boxing even before they knew that it was called so!

The boys started to come in demand with their tunes after local folk saw what they could do with their voices. “We were a part of the choir and we used to do back-up percussion. Slowly, we started coming up with more and more sounds. It was only later that we came to know this is what they call beat boxing,” says Neil Valles of Boxy Turvy.

Today, beat boxing is connected to the hip hop culture, but these boys are adding Indian flavours to their vocal antics setting up their own unique style. “Apart from western percussion instruments, we do bird sounds, car horns, trains and Indian instruments like tabla too. We pick up sounds from the environment and daily life. And add that to our tracks,” says Neil.

Apart from hip hop stuff like In Da Club and rock like Africa by Toto, these beat boxers also do Western classical numbers like Beethovan’s Fur Elise and fun improvisations of Hindi songs like Muqabla and Bombay Se Aya Mera Dost. Of course, there’s load of original stuff that they keep coming up with. The most interesting side to them though is the audience interaction. “We involve the audiences; ask them to contribute and our performances are usually driven by their reactions and demands,” says Alan.

This month, Boxy Turvy will be opening for the Brit girl-band Boxettes featuring the beat boxing world champion Bellatrix. The boys are excited but they want the world to know that India too have beat boxers. “We hear so much about the beat boxers from across the world, but we want to send out the message that we, in India, too have some good beat boxers. They just need the platform,” says Alan De Souza.