Abhishek Bhaskar: Getting his beat right!

The concept of vocal percussions mimicking drum machines, beatboxing, is beyond fascinating. But as Abhishek Bhaskar shares, he didn’t even know what it was. That was then. Now, the 22-year-old from Bengaluru is the founder of Voicebox, that conducts beatboxing tutorials live. He is also at the top of his beatboxing game, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Ranveer Singh, Chris Gayle and Virat Kohli at events, leaving them nothing short of spellbound.  Ahead of his Tedx talk at his alma mater, Dayanand Sagar College of Engineering on May 31, he shares his journey.

“The madness started before my 10th standard board exams. I came across Karthik Periasamy and Roshan Satish beatboxing and they introduced me to the concept. It’s then that I started learning how on YouTube,” says Abhishek, who draws inspiration not from other beatboxers but from various genres of music – everything from hip hop and techno to Punjabi and tapang. “I even collaborated with classical Indian artiste Aishwarya Subbalakshmi (MS Subbalakshmi’s granddaughter) once, jamming up mantras! I have a record for not following my set. It’s always spontaneous,” he tells us. From picking up his skill online, the youngster decided to educate masses about the art of beatboxing and to promote its culture too. “Every time I did a corporate show, people asked me to conduct workshops, and I thought, why not?” he says about the workshops that he now conducts across the country.

Starting off with a class for barely nine people, he picked up pace when he conducted one for a packed mall with over 3,500 people – including Virat Kohli and Chris Gayle. There has been no stopping him since. “Everyone thinks it’s all glitz and glamour, but it’s not. It’s a lot of sleepless nights and years of hard work that goes in to those 20 minutes of glory,” he explains. Like any other “typical Indian parents” his weren’t onboard right from the start either. “They wanted me to become an engineer. But it’s when they saw that I could achieve financial independence through this and could turn it into a profession, that they started believing in me,” he says. A self-professed workaholic, Abhishek is a month away from being an architect and the lad, who is also a motivational speaker, hopes to combine his creative pursuits. “As an architect, I’m always thinking about how to create spaces instead of buildings, that’s what gave rise to another one of my startups, Abhishek Bhaskar Research and Architecture (ABRA). Through this I’m also trying to generate (design) forms using beatboxing,” he says, with his focus unwavering.