IMITATING the beat of a drum or the scratch of a turntable with your lips, voice, mouth, and tongue takes skill. Just ask Ntuthuko ‘Drumkit’ Majola, a rising star on the South African beatboxing scene. Beatboxing is a more contemporary style and while it is a relatively young vocal art, it is by no means an easy one.

Northglen News recently caught up with Drumkit, or the ‘one man rock band’ as he is known to his fans to find out more about the art and how it all started for the 29-year-old.

“I come from a music background. In school I was part of the choir from Grade 6 and I was privileged enough to perform with the Durban Philharmonic Orchestra playing the trumpet and trombone. I think playing the trombone and being able to change the shape of my mouth to produce different sounds definitely helped me develop my beats.

“My older brother was also an inspiration, he was a big fan of the hip-hop scene and we’d often sit in his room and he’d rap and I’d be his hype-man or throw down beats for him, at the time it was all about fun. I guess I never took the art form that seriously or hadn’t developed as a beatboxer to appreciate it. People would often tell me how good I was. It wasn’t until my neighbour gave me a CD by an American beatboxer called Rahzel that I began learning the technical aspects of it and began creating my own beats,” he said.

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