BREATH CONTROL: THE HISTORY OF THE HUMAN BEAT BOX Rating: Director: Joey Garfield Producers: Zachary Mortensen, Jacob Craycroft, Joey Garfield Director of Photography: Joey Garfield Featuring: Doug E. Fresh, Biz Markie, Rahzel, Click the Supah Latin Visit the IMDB page for full cast and crew

Review by: Warren Curry
6/27/02

Breath Control: The History of the Human Beat Box is an extremely entertaining, sincere and comprehensive love letter to a form of musical expression that appeared on the verge of extinction. Combining rare concert and television footage with recent interviews of prominent beat boxers, Joey Garfield's infectious tribute to the art form is destined to score big with those in-the-know and for neophytes, like myself, the documentary serves as a thoroughly enjoyable educational tool.

Garfield assembles the film, mostly, in chronological order, starting with the pioneers of hip-hop beat boxing Doug E. Fresh and Darren "Buff" Robinson, the latter of the old school rap band The Fat Boys. Beat boxing, which is essentially the use of the human voice to mimic a percussion instrument (admittedly, that's an over-simplified definition), hit its stride in the mid 80's with the emergence of such artists as Emanon and Biz Markie (his interview looks as if it was conducted in a primitive dungeon), as rap music grew from being strictly an urban phenomenon to mass entertainment. When hip-hop began turning more to D.J.'s and the use of sampled drum beats to create its tapestry of sound, the beat boxer largely lost his/her place, and soon a skill that was once so popular and revered, became more passé than break dancing and parachute pants.

But Garfield exposes a new era of beat boxers, which include performers such as Click Tha Supahlatin, Chris Jung, Afra the Tonguetablist and a voice of the future in 15-year-old Shaun Roig. Through his conversations with these people, and the enthusiasm they display for their craft, it appears that beat boxing may again be headed on its way out of the underground.

Garfield obviously is a huge fan of this culture, as there certainly is no way a layman could've driven this film. He connects beat boxing's roots to African tribal songs, unearths footage long since buried (such as Buff and The Fat Boys demonstrating their talents to Regis Philbin on The Today Show circa 1984) and interviews just about everyone connected to the beat boxing scene. Many of the beat boxers he tracks down take the opportunity to strut their stuff, and I awed at the amazing and untraditional vocal talents these people have. And, impressively, he manages to pack all of this into a film that runs barely over 70 minutes.

The pace is kept upbeat and the virtuoso editing of Jacob Craycroft (who was one of the film's producers) is masterful. The film also tastefully sends out a dedication to Buff, who sadly passed away prior to the production of this movie (which took six years to complete). Like most documentaries, Breath Control will resonate much deeper with those already interested in the topic, but Garfield does his best to speak in accessible terms. If anything, the film's breadth is just a tiny bit of a detriment, as I would've preferred to spend more time with a few of the film's major figures. His efforts to interview a wide range of subjects works in conveying a sense of how alive beat boxing is today (even tossing in some footage of Scottish beat boxers), but doesn't allow you the chance to get to know some of the key components as well as you might like.

Breath Control is a very well done documentary, which achieves what it sets out to do: entertain and teach. It would make a terrific companion piece to Scratch, another great hip-hop related documentary that was released earlier this year, although it stands perfectly well on its own.

(Screened at the 2002 Los Angeles Film Festival)

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