It’s been a good year for beatboxing. The Grand Beatbox Battle and Beatbox Battle World Championships returned, the European championships concluded, new events popped up, and breakout stars emerged. Still, there have been some surprising things going on, and it’s worth looking back on the year that was in beatbox.

Top videos don’t reach heights

We have gotten used to beatbox videos regularly eclipsing a million views. Since 2018, battle and wild card videos have regularly reached towards the seven digit mark, but in 2023, very few videos reached such heights.

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Among traditional videos, just seven videos garnered over a million views, with a new edition in Verbalase’s Cartoon Beatbox Battle series hitting 5 million views in just 8 months. Among wildcards, only Jairo and Wing’s GBB wildcards hit a million. 

To be fair, the GBB being late in the year certainly impacted these numbers. The event often brings a spike to the successful wildcards of breakout performers, and the event videos usually lead beatbox videos in views. If the loopstation and tag team videos that have already been released are any indication, many 2023 GBB videos will comfortably hit a million within a year of their release. 

With that said, there are many beatbox videos on YouTube that made a million views look like child’s play. Tons of Youtube Shorts, videos that were also released on Instagram Reels and Tik Tok, pushed into the tens and hundreds of millions of views. In a year when many beatboxers have been open and honest about how to make money (including in this newsletter), it speaks volumes that beatboxers have followed the incentives set by Youtube and created content that meets the criteria for increasing ad revenue.

Breakout stars

The breakout stars of the beatbox community have tended to be beatboxers, and there are a couple artists that made 2023 their own, but my top star of 2023 is Beatbox Germany.

National beatbox organizations have occupied an awkward place in the beatboxing world. At once, an entry point for new beatboxers, gatekeepers for qualification to the world champs, and event/content companies on their own. In many ways, these competing missions have forced national organizations to focus on one over others. 

Add to these stresses the high likelihood of leadership change within national organizations — even in beatbox-rich USA, the American champs just passed from the American Champs organization to the Beatbox House — national beatbox organizations have not usually had success building out a presence on Youtube. 

Beatbox Australia and Korea Beatbox TV are the rare national organizations that have built subscriber bases greater than 100,000, and that work happened years ago. In the past three years, Beatbox Germany has drastically improved their Youtube presence, pushing their subscribers from just 57,000 as recently as February to over 900,000 now, nearly ensuring that they will hit a million subscribers in 2024. (All subscriber data per Socialblade.)

A lot of their content — studio sessions at events, compilations, shoutouts, battle videos and event recaps — follows the Swissbeatbox playbook, but why reinvent the wheel? It’s good for the scene to see a new organization enjoy success online as well as in real life.

On the individual level, 808Banon, the youngest world champion in beatboxing history, has to come in atop the list. Many were surprised to see him win the 2022 American Champs on his first try, and fewer still would have chosen the 17 year-old from Pindall, Arkansas, to beat Bizkit and eventually win world champs. But he’s among the world’s best now, and that’s not changing any time soon. (More on 808Banon from me soon… keep your eyes peeled!)

Among device-free beatboxers, MaxO, Pacmax, Abo Ice and the boys from Jairo take the cake. Speaking to me at the world champs this past summer, a fellow competitor said that MaxO “moves air” when he beatboxes. The Bulgarian champ’s ascent from regional powerhouse to a challenger for the world’s best happened quickly, first with his domination at the European championship, then with a compelling showing at the world champs, where he finished in the top-8.

Pacmax, who placed third to MaxO’s first at the European champs, left berlin as the top Max in the beatboxing world, defeated MaxO en route to a second place finish at the world champs. He also (randomly) placed top-5 in the sound effect category at the world champs, a funny cherry on top of Pacmax’s big year. He won the Florida Beatbox Battle and Bayreuth Battle, pushing past the prodigy label he earned as a teenager and into the world’s elite.

Abo Ice and Jairo’s GBB wildcards earned the immediate breakout treatment, with commenters and reactors alike proclaiming them easy winners, praise that only continued once they were indeed welcomed into the ranks of the GBB competitors. Abo Ice’s second wildcard even earned the Hiss remix treatment, high praise for a relative newcomer. That Jairo and Abo Ice followed up their successful auditions with impactful runs to the finals and semifinals of their respective brackets only served as further evidence that they are here to stay.

Decent year for Swissbeatbox?

It’s getting harder and harder to measure success for beatboxing’s biggest organization. As I wrote earlier this year, moving the Grand Beatbox Battle to Japan meant Swissbeatbox and Pepouni would be meeting a goal that they had set years prior, but by other more traditional measures, it was not their best year.

On the plus side, Swissbeatbox invested heavily in the Tokyo Grand Beatbox Battle, hosting smaller events in the city throughout the year, providing a World Cup-esque investment in the local scene and helping the European event planners acclimate to hosting in Japan. 

The event itself came off without any major issues, a relief after the complaints about the 2021 edition. There were not safety complaints (though it is unclear how much credit is due to Swissbeatbox for creating a safe environment and how much to luck that safety issues simply did not come up), and artists who had previously stated that they would not perform at a Swissbeatbox event again without changes performed, indicating that the event was built with artists in mind. 

As a Youtube channel, though, Swissbeatbox struggled. For the first time in my memory, they did not upload a video a day. That practice had been a defining feature of the channel for years, and a huge part of how Swissbeatbox became the hub of all things beatbox. This choice, that I happen to think probably makes sense given how big they are, gives credence to those who would say that Discord is the place to go to learn what is happening right now in beatbox.

What’s more, Swissbeatbox’s subscriber numbers continued to tail off, following their post Covid trend. Swissbeatbox’s year over year subscriber growth fell by more than 50% for the second straight year. 

Swissbeatbox also partnered with the Mad Twinz for their Beatland Battle, one of the weirder moments in the year. Beatland had many logistical issues, relied on some sketchy crypto stuff, and, when they finally hosted a live event, had terrible audio issues for their videos. 

Swissbeatbox has partnered with many beatbox events over the years, indeed this was part of how they built up their following. They would travel the world, helping national championships and local events with logistics, and streaming the event on their channel, eventually uploading the videos as well. With this in mind, it is a bit odd that Beatland turned out to be a rather amateurish event.

Consolidators

I don’t have too much to say about beatboxers who have been amazing for a long time, and continued to do amazing things. With that said, River, Colaps, FootboxG, Robin, MOM, Sarukani, Napom, and Hiss all had amazing years. They all continue to innovate within their own musical palates, staying relevant and on top of the beatboxing world through dedication and hard work.

Another huge winner this year is Bee Low. At the end of the Beatbox Battle World Championships, the father of modern beatbox organization gave out lifetime achievement awards. As he invited luminary after luminary, innovator after innovator to the stage, he quietly reminded the audience of his decades-long impact on the art of beatboxing. 

The World Champs were not without their drawbacks, but twenty years out from the first BBBWC, Bee Low was not just hosting the world champs — he was still innovating! Simply put, Bee Low is who he has always been. Curious, aloof, and a passionate advocate for the art of beatboxing. 2023 was better off with him hosting the world champs. 

In sum, 2023 was a solid year for beatbox. No scandals, a lot of good events, and a handful of breakout faces for beatbox fans to follow. Beatbox is still here, people are still making money doing this, and young people still are finding their way to this wacky primordial art. It’s good for me, and if you’re reading this, it’s good for you too. I’ll see ya next year!

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Upcoming Calendar: Events

• Sarukani at GMO Sonic 2024: Saitama, Japan. January 28, 2024.
• UK Beatbox Championships: London, United Kingdom. February 2-3, 2024.
• Beatbox Royalty Talk Event: Hamilton, New Zealand. February 24, 2024.
• CUBE UNITE: Tokyo, Japan. March 31, 2024.
• Florida Beatbox Battle: Agen, France. April 5-6, 2024.
• World Wide Beatbox Festival 2024: Maggie Valley, North Carolina (USA). May 16-19.
• Vocal Masters 2024: Chur, Switzerland. May 31 - June 1, 2024.
• Circlejam Beatbox Festival: Ferlach, Austria. July 26-27, 2024

If I missed any upcoming events or Wild Cards, hit me up on Instagram, I’m @HateItOrLevitt or @SpeshFX.