Beatboxing!

We have also had some beatboxing sessions recently, from the Beatbox Twins. This part of the project is really exciting, there are so many different things going on!

Here are some videos from early sessions. They mainly consist of making really stupid noises. Beatboxing takes lots of practice. This is something I've learnt from these sessions. Also, you often get very lightheaded and need to drink a lot of water otherwise you feel like you're going to pass out. I don't know how they do it!

Here's a demonstration of what the Beatbox twins can do:

And here's some of our participants! Farzan at Naseby:

Younus and Forid at Hutton:

Curtis at our youth centres

Curtis also led some sessions at Hutton Hall and Naseby Centre, focussing on what the young people wanted to talk about. The young people wrote their own lyrics, a minimum of 8 lines was set as a target. Here are some examples of their work!

Curtis with Forid and Mahfuz, last week's official best rappers!

Curtis at BHH take 2!

Curtis came back to the Children's Ward at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital last week (2nd July) for another session rapping with the young people on the ward. He rapped with Baabar in the sensory room, creating a rap based on things that Baabar likes. First he brainstormed some ideas, then wrote the rap in super quick time!

Hi I’m Baabar, trainers on my feet

Love a bhangra beat and a little doner meat

Loving all the nurses, yeah there’s a few

If I ever bought a car then it would be a Subaru

Can’t beatbox but I’ve got a DVD

Christina went and videoed and made a vid for me

Lights in the room tell me colours that you see

Purples and pinks and there’s blue like the sea

Long limousines and they call it a stretch

All of the nurses I’ll go in and fetch

Baabar’s niece who he loves have you seen her

Amina’s her name but I call her Ameena

But I better wrap it up here

So we can record and we all give a cheer

Lay back now in the chair go to sleep

Press play whenever to hear my little beat.

Next Curtis co-wrote a rap with Morgan, whose twin brother is a rapper too! Curtis took the same approach, first making a chart of all the things Morgan likes and then encouraging him to write about them.

Morgan is my name I won’t tell you again

I text real quick on my black BBM

59 plus in my contact list

And I got a red label around my wrist

Love the Lazy Song by Bruno Mars

And I don’t know why but I’ve got it in my stars

I live in Birmingham with my mom and my brothers

House too small so no room for others

Play football on the big green grass

I’m way too quick so I don’t need to pass

I have a favourite player who is Marlon King

He runs down the pitch and has a good swing

12 inch pizza yeah it’s a beast

Pepperoni and a large meat feast

Box so big that I can’t see the telly

Wait til I’m done see the size of my belly.

Curtis and Brandon's rap at BHH

Curtis Clacey is a brilliant young rapper from Leicester who came in to Heartlands Hospital to work on the Children's Ward to create raps about their lives. He's an amazing freestyler and wowed everybody!

Brandon here is one of the young people he worked with to create this rap. Brandon was wonderful, really enthusiastic and really good at coming up with rhymes! He wrote all of his lines himself. Unfortunately Curtis made me join in too and spoil everything.