beatbox

plural beatboxes

1. entertainmentA type of electronic percussion device.

   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.

   2004, Ed Gaskell, Make Your Own Music Video, CMP, →ISBN, page 26

   2 more examples

   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.

   1992, Colin Larkin, The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Guinness, →ISBN, page 1340

   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.

   1994, Sally Banes, Writing Dancing in the Age of Postmodernism, Wesleyan University Press, →ISBN, page 322

present singular third person beatboxes · participle present beatboxing · participle past beatboxed · past beatboxed

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

   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.

   2005, Derek Beres, Global Beat Fusion: The History of the Future of Music, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 102

   2 more examples

   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.

   2001, William Upski Wimsatt, Bomb the Suburbs, Soft Skull Press, →ISBN, page 69

   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).

   2004, Neil Kulkarni, Hip Hop: Bring the Noise: The Stories Behind the Biggest Songs, Thunder's Mouth Press, →ISBN, page 43