The year is 2012, Berlin. A jury of the 5 best beatboxers in the world is watching the battle between a Bulgarian girl and a French girl. Everyone in the room is excited and supporting both players. Unheard sounds are coming out of the mouths of the young girls. After 7 minutes the unnatural sounds stop and the world beatbox champion for the next four years is
Adriana Nikolova, better known as Pe4enkata!
Pe4enkata brings the title to Bulgaria, but she does not stop at that point. She continues to study opera singing and to mix opera with beatbox. She helps young talents to succeed in this kind of music and develops the beatbox stage.
In beatboxing male to female ratio tends heavily in favor of men. What is the difference between a male and a female voice?
Since I’ve always competed with men, beside in 2012 at the World championship in Berlin, I think that women are not inferior to men in anything, except that as a whole our art is considered a “man’s sport”. We all know that girls, especially at my age, are interested in many other things. I have never met another girl who spends 10 hours a day in beatbox training…
You have a beatbox school. At what age do your students begin and what opportunities exist for them after their graduation?
Beside beatboxing, you can learn to play the piano, guitar, sing, learn musical theory and harmony. As a whole, we strive to develop the creative thinking of our students, not setting them in frames. We organize a lot of concerts and aim at original production.
I already want to be a beatboxer too. What qualities do I need and where shall I start?
In order to be a beatboxer, as we like to joke with Skiller, you must be rhythmic, hardworking
and of course, more or less have beatbox as your passion.
You have been dealing with this kind of music for years. What development do you observe?
Definitely we were able to commercialize it, but I do not know to what extent this is good, since beatbox itself is considered “underground”.
How do you combine opera singing with beatboxing? Maybe this is the way for young people to start loving opera…
This is exactly my goal! Many times I have given a happening from my childhood as an example. I took part in the Bizet’s opera “Carmen” and I told my friends that I will arrange free tickets for them to come to listen to it. The reaction was tragicomic: “Opera? Are you crazy? This is so ridiculous – someone screaming on the stage…” Yet, I managed to convince them to attend this event which was important to me. After the end of the performance they came to me and said: “Wow, that was pretty cool, why haven’t you told us before?” I think it is good enough as an example of the way opera art is regarded as a whole. We are in the habit of expressing negative opinion about everything in advance, even when not being familiar with it …
© Adriana Nikolova Beatbox
© Adriana Nikolova Beatbox
© Adriana Nikolova Beatbox
© Adriana Nikolova Beatbox
Pe4enkata and Vesko Eshkenasi
Concert with Grafa
© Adriana Nikolova Beatbox
