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• Beatboxing: not just for hip hop heads

Learning to beatbox is like learning to cook from your mother. At least, that is what beatboxer/modern dance accompanist Dominic “Shodekeh” Talifero would like you to believe.

“You don’t study under a master beatboxer if you want to learn to beatbox,” Shodekeh says. “The culture isn’t like that. You learn from hanging out with your friends and being around [beatboxing].”

Shodekeh describes the vocal form as being raw, organic and born out of necessity. In many cases, including his own, he says, beatboxers begin experimenting vocally because they cannot afford a drum set.

But why turn to beatboxing? Why not try banging on a trash can?

“I had always been good at impressions, voices and emulations,” Shodekeh says. “I guess I got started out making machine-gun noises, playing with my Transformers as a kid.”

As he grew up, Shodekeh was indirectly influenced by Doug E. Fresh and by Darren Robertson, a.k.a. Buffy the Human Beatbox. In high school Shodekeh listened to Scratch from the Roots and developed an interest in mimicking the turntable with his own vocal percussion.

It was not until his Fall 1997 college education at Penn State’s Beaver Campus (Monaca, PA) that Shodekeh became a big practitioner of beatboxing. He began to accompany modern dance classes at Towson University and was soon playing for a number of dance institutions in the area.

Shodekeh says that one of his best challenges has been playing for dance and that he knew the experience would expand things for him musically and creatively.

“It’s interesting to see what comes out of me when I’m in a class…sometimes I make rhythms that I didn’t even know were there,” Shodekeh says.

He also loves the dynamic of two art forms existing in a mutually supportive environment.

“To see these amazing dancers move and gel and go against what I’m doing in a serious way, to be able to support them, is a real honor,” he says.

It is important for a dance accompanist to be mindful of the mood of a danced phrase and to play appropriately.

After accompanying Jeffrey Bullock’s ballet class at the American Dance Festival, Bullock told Shodekeh that all of the dancer’s movements had been revealed during class. Bullock explained that there was no room for the dancers to slack off because the precision of Shodekeh’s rhythms exposed all of their kinesthetic shortcomings.

Talk about shaking things up.

“I’m very much a rebel at heart but I also like to adapt,” Shodekeh says. “Me playing for a ballet class is me being an adaptive rebel.”

Beatboxing has a large potential in its adaptability, which allows Shodekeh to lend his skills to artists of all genres.

“[Beatboxing] breaks down these walls…which is very unique to its musical culture,” he says. “If a person recreates any type of music with their voice, people are amazed even if they hate the type of music that is being done.”

Shodekeh plans to break down walls himself by organizing EMBODY, a music festival for practitioners of all vocal techniques. He aims to host beatboxers, opera singers and every vocal artist in between.

“I want my festival to be an oasis for unification,” Shodekeh says. “I’d love to see collaboration…it needs to happen and it’s not happening right now.”