One of the world’s leading beatboxers, Shlomo has worked for years to push the boundaries of beatboxing as an art form. This man’s mouth makes mad, mad music. Shlomo has used these incredible vocal skills to make music with people from all kinds of musical backgrounds, including the Mighty Boosh, Björk, Martha Wainwright, Damon Albarn, Jarvis Cocker and Bill Bailey.
Beatbox, Beggars and Björk
Classically trained as a drummer and percussionist since the age of 8, Shlomo took up jazz drums in his teens. In 2002 he moved to Leeds to study Astrophysics, but his beatboxing quickly got him noticed and he joined the award-winning hip hop group Foreign Beggars soon after, heading on tour across the UK, Europe and Canada.
In August 2004, Shlomo was invited by Icelandic singer Björk to beatbox on her all-vocal album Medulla. The track, Oceania, was commissioned to be performed at the Olympics Opening Ceremony in Athens. An estimated audience of 4.5 billion viewers saw this performance, making Shlomo the most heard beatboxer in history, although most would not have realised that the drum sounds were vocal.
In late 2005, Shlomo made his solo TV debut on BBC2’s ‘Later… with Jools Holland’, putting him in unprecedented demand as a solo artist.
Suddenly finding himself headlining as a solo act, Shlomo wanted to expand his performances to be more than just beats and tricks. He created a pioneering new show combining beatboxing and drumming at the same time, as well as using a loop sampler to create layers of structured original music.
The Vocal Orchestra
By 2007, Shlomo was ready for a new challenge. He had been asked to curate the International Beatbox Convention at the London Southbank Centre, and could not find a headline act that could appeal to the public as well as the beatboxing community. So he decided to create a new act instead. He put together a 13 piece beatboxing choir called ‘Shlomo and the Vocal Orchestra’ to headline the convention.
Filmmaker Colette McWilliams heard about the project and decided to make a feature documentary called ‘The Beatbox Choir’. The film follows the story of the choir over the six weeks from their first meeting up until their debut headline performance.
That summer, the Vocal Orchestra went on to perform to 10,000 people at the Big Chill Festival, and have since headlined at Southbank’s Choral Festival, created the World’s Largest Beatbox Choir, and played at Glastonbury Festival to over 15,000 people.
Music Through Unconventional Means
After the success of the Vocal Orchestra’s sold out debut, Shlomo was appointed as Artist in Residence at Southbank Centre. In November 2007, he launched a monthly collaborative concert series at the Queen Elizabeth Hall called ‘Music Through Unconventional Means’. The first 6 month concert run was entirely sold out, and saw Shlomo collaborate with artists such as Martha Wainwright, Teddy Thompson, DJ Yoda, Seb Rochford and Mad Professor.
Over the summer of 2008, Shlomo took a break from Southbank to bring the concept of Music Through Unconventional Means to several festivals. This included a main stage appearance at Bestival in front of 30,000 people, and a 2-hour collaborative show at Glastonbury featuring guests like Get Cape Wear Cape Fly, Reverend and the Makers, Ed Harcourt, Portico Quartet, Martina Topley-Bird and more. Each guest came on for one song with the Vocal Orchestra as the backing band.
Music Through Unconventional Means returned to the Southbank Centre in December 2008 with a massive Concert Against Knife Crime, featuring collaborations with Jarvis Cocker, Ashley Walters, Marcus Brigstocke, Fyfe Dangerfield and a load more.
The series will continue in 2009, running through to Summer.
Beatboxing to save the world
As well as performing, recording and working on larger commissions, Shlomo heads up several outreach projects, using beatboxing as a tool to encourage young people to get into music. Some of these projects include the BAC Beatbox Academy and the One Voice Choir project, culminating in a mass performance at Wembley Arena in September 2008.
