Last night was the finals of the UK Beatbox Championships. I was one of the judges, which I have been doing since we set up the first competitions up in Leeds in 2004.
It was a bit strange for me this year as this is the first time that I have not been involved in organising the event, and things have changed. In the past, the battles have always been judged on the crowd reaction, which puts entertainment top of the agenda and stops people from taking it excessively seriously. The weird thing last night was that the judges were asked to vote on which beatboxer we thought should go through, similar to the way the judges vote on TV shows like ‘Britain’s Got Talent’.
This was so hard to do, as it meant I was literally being asked to raise my hand and vote for or against each beatboxer. There is no way of saying who is a ‘better’ beatboxer. It is not like a sport, for example running, where you can see unequivocally that one guy ran faster than the other. Comparing two beatboxers is a bit like asking who is the best pianist in the world: there are about a million different ways of playing the thing. I think I offended a couple of beatboxers by not voting for them.
The worst thing of all was having to watch my fellow judge Killa Kela get boo-ed off the stage for going on too long. That was painful – when I first started out Kela was our hero.
But I did have a great night mingling with the crowd and seeing friends on the scene, and MC Zani really deserves his new title as 2008 UK Beatbox Champion. He also drives home in a brand new car courtesy of the sponsors. Maybe you can give me a lift to Glasto Zani?
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