Zede & Denis the Menace

In this episode we talk to Joel Marian aka Zede and his brother Denis Marian aka Denis the Menace. Zede is a world champion beatboxer, international beatbox judge and producer. Denis is a Swiss beatbox champion, Swiss Battle of the Year b-boy champion and represents the Ghost Rockz crew.

We chat with them about developing signature sounds, preparing & judging beatbox battles, getting along as brothers, maintaining their health, perfecting techniques and much more.

You can find them here:
Zede's linktree
www.instagram.com/zedebeatbox/
www.instagram.com/zedemusic/
www.instagram.com/denisthemenace/
https://denisbeatbox.com/
https://youtu.be/14d2G6rDHKk
Swiss Beatbox Youtube Channel 

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

I will always suggest to start with the drums. If you imagine a drum set, you can see the kick or the snare or the hi-hat. And these are the three elements: basic foundation of the beatbox. Welcome to souls of hip hop! A podcast for hip hop heads that aims to bring inspiring people together to share their wisdom, passion, and unique stories. My name is Candy, I'm DJ Razor Cut, and together we are Soulidarity- connecting souls organically. What's up, fam? Thanks for tuning in. Yeah, I'm Joel Marian aka Zede, living here in Switzerland for 33 years, I was born here. Doing the beatbox for almost 20 years. Yeah, I'm Denis the Menace. Denis Marian. And yeah, I'm the brother of Zede. Swiss beatbox champion three times 2017, 2018 and 2019. And yeah, 16 years beatboxing. Also a b-boy. Yeah. And I remember when I started breaking, Zede, you were breaking a little bit too. I remember you came to practice a couple of times, but you decided to focus on producing and beatboxing? Yeah, exactly. I had a good friend of mine, who was a very good B-Boy. Yeah, I was just curious. I seen him doing it. And I was like, man, maybe I can try it out as well. And I did it for like two or three months, I realized that. Maybe it's much for me. And he showed me the first b-boying stuff with the friends and then I jumped in. Yeah, that's how I start. Yeah. And then you became part of the ghost rockz crew. That was my dream to join the crew, ghost rockz. I worked a lot. And I was motivated to join the crew and give my best. What was it about the dance that made you want to keep doing it? First, I saw a lot of B boys, pro B boys. And of course, my friends. And then yeah, it was my motivation to keep doing that. I also think it was the B boy community itself and all the B boys as I also experienced it, they all push each other. And definitely T and the friends that kept him doing what's doing that was breaking. Normally it is that way like a sibling gets you into something and then one person sticks to it. The other one's like, that's kind of funny. How would your parents describe what you do? weird sounds being annoying sometimes. No. In the beginning, maybe Yeah. But they just got so used to it. But how they would describe it in crazy sounds. Being involved in the hip hop community doing hip hop, music, enjoying music, being a part of the culture. And your father is a musician too. Can you give us a little bit of a background? Yeah, he's playing a guitar. He used to be in bands when he was younger as well, and was playing in different countries. He actually is from Romania. He grew up there. And you had to remain in bands and going to Germany and Switzerland and performing here and there. And yeah, he mainly, he was a guitarist. For me. I was always inspired by my father seeing him on the stage performing in front of a crowd. And sometimes when he got me or a school location where you perform Yeah, there was always like something big for me. And for me, it was clear that I also want wanted to stay stand on this stage. When I when I'm getting older. What type of music did your partents play when you were young? Yeah, my father. He played a lot of cover songs from rock, pop, punk. Country. Yeah. And then later on, he got into country music. And he played in different country bands here in Switzerland. From my understanding your parents have been very supportive view pursuing music as a career. Yeah, that's true. Especially my father because he knows what a struggle it is to get there where you want to be as a musician. Oh, he always supported me or joined us with some events, watch our performance. He also always wanted to hear the newest music I produce. You know, also I show him sometimes new beatboxers You know, he also enjoys that So I want to get back to how you guys started beatboxing because many times people start hobbies, you know, that doesn't transform into a career. And so I'm interested in first how how did you guys get introduced to beatboxing? I started very early like I was like 13, 12, 13 when I heard Rahzel, he is a legend from New York, and I used to make sounds weird sounds and imitations when I was a kid as well, like when I was playing with toys, or I watched Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, and I tried to imitate them. And then later on, I also seen a police academy for the one guy made funny sounds with his mouth. And I was so fascinated by that. And then the and then later, like, two, three years later, I heard the Rahzel, someone doing music with his mouth. And I knew that I wanted to make this as well. It's how I started. And for me, it was a beginning two years after my brother, for me was was I was fascinated from Zede. And then I started to be boxing and just want to do what my brother do. After then I watched some videos from all the beatboxers that's that's how I started. So you mentioned that a police academy I think that was Michael Winslow. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Did you ever get to meet him in person? Unfortunately, not. No. No, I never was in a situation where I was on an event where he was as well. He was part of the beatboxing community, too. I think I saw, he judged somewhere. Yeah, American champs. Yeah, he he judged the American champs with Rahzel Reeps One and Michael Winslow. But other than that I never seen doing other stuff, other big books, or being somewhere. I remember him from Spaceballs. The movie is hilarious. And there's a part where the system gets jammed. And he's like, I'm gonna do a terrible impression right now. But he's like, it's the bloops in the beeps and blips or something it makes like the sounds of it. And as a kid watching it, I just loved that part. We used to rewind it and just watch it over and over because the sounds that he made are just so spot on. So I can see being inspired by him. That's also what got me stuck in the head, you know, hearing someone doing sounds with the mouth. Do you remember like your first beatbox? Or what's it called? Like? What's it called for beatboxing? For the first routines or for sounds? Yeah, I remember starting only using my tongue. So I will always get the snare and the cakes with like that. I'll always only it the sounds with with my tongue. And then later on, I added my lips. And my notes for me to say. So you're just like hanging out at the house making sounds? would you use music and then copy the music? Or do you just like oh, this sounds interesting. Well, in the beginning, of course, when I heard Rahzel or Kenny Mohammed was also from New York or Kila Kela from the UK, which is three were my first idols. Yeah, I copied them. I just copied them. I tried to copy the sounds and routines they did. Later on, I discovered sounds that they didn't do and edit this to my routines and build my own style. I see some similarities to B boying in terms of you know, developing your own style, and breaking, you'd have like your own signature moves. And I think in beatboxing you also have like your own signature sounds. Yes, exactly. How did you like develop your own signature sound? For me, it was just playing around with sounds, discovering sounds by as I said, by copying others, you know, you learn the sound from beatboxer you make the sound and then you by accident, you make a different sound you like Oh, okay. Oh, that's an interesting sound and you keep working on that sounds until it gets yours You know, and also being patient as well because it's almost impossible to get the sound on the first time. Sometimes it takes you months to get the sound that you want it to learn. And patience is key even if the sound in the beginning sounds horrible. long as you work on it. Take your time it will you will get there. Yeah, and also I realized pretty much early on that Kila Kela doesn't sound like Rahzel and Rahzel doesn't sound like Kila Kela. And for me it was also goal to have something by my own, I guess for Denis saying yeah. I remember when Denis used to sound a lot like me in the beginning. And I told him early on, try to create your own stuff, try to create your own sounds, he listened to it. And of course, he has sounds that I use. And he has some routines where he used similar techniques that I use, but he definitely has his own stamp on it. style. How do you prepare for battle, I started my routines and prepare a lot my routines and watch some videos from my competitors. other competitors, yeah, and try to do stuff like other competitors doing some special techniques and right to be clean in my routines. Write down your routines that you have already the competitors try to create the battle already in your head. It depends on the battle. Of course, there are different kinds of battles. It depends on the switch championships, maybe you're you know, two or three of boxers, but on international battles, you pretty much know everyone or 90% Yeah, you most of the time, you know which be boxers are getting further than others, just by a knowledge of poseen. Then you of course, compare yourself with with with the others. Is it clever to make this kind of technique if he's better than me in this technique, maybe I don't do this, like that. And also write down your your routines, for me is freestyling is also part of what I'm loving to do. So for me back then, of course, it was way different than today. And the last time I battled was 2009. And I used a lot of freestyle as to to have more room, you know, improvise to rebuttal what the other beatboxer did. What every boxer is different. Can DJ battles, he will plan certain distances and certain burns and agree going to like how is it in beatboxing? Yes, there are, for example, when the first round is over from beatboxer A, beatboxer B can start with something the other Beatboxer ended this round, for example, and try to make it better. So you just answered to his rounds. Or you can flip a routine of the opponent and throw him in this kind of way. And of course, the presence, just the battle attitude. And being in his face, crowd reaction, all this kind of stuff. So very important as well. I notice and the battles that I've watched the genre of music, there's a mash up of it. And the more that at least the ones that I've seen, the more that you can show versatility, the better it appears to be. How do you prepare for that the the beatboxing is pretty much going with the music roles with the music you know, it used to be hip hop started with hip hop if the when through EDM music through dubstep when dubstep was a huge a lot of the boxer made the dubstep be boxing now it's kind of trap as well. Yeah, now you have a lot of genres that you can use. And it depends on the boxers, what what they're doing, you know, there'll be boxes that are more doing this kind of UK Drum and Bass kind of stuff. Others are all hip hop, all the beatbox are away musical working only but mainly with the vocals. You find a lot and of course if you have an opponent for me, I'm very technical beatbox if I have a beatboxer that is very good musicality. I better not try to add musicality to my style or performance only maybe if I want to troll or do something special with it. Or people not expecting maybe then but of course you have to study which direction the boxers are going or stuff. So in that regard, when you're judging, how do you compare or how do you weigh different dimensions of it? You know, every every style or every category has their flaws and strengths. So you have to know what these are. For example, if you have a technical beat boxer against musicality boxer, it's the same in breakdancing. It's like power mover against styler. It's hard You know, but if you do power moves, if you're technical, then you have to be very clean, there has to be no fails. It has to be a lot of flow in it and dynamic. If your style is very based on musicality, the same Can you it's the notes correctly. You also have to also have dynamic and and how it will create your story and everything like that. But if you have if you judging a lot, you will get a lot of experience and you will get it here For that, you say technique, what are some of those techniques that said, People heart, it's hard to, I mean, because it technique can be in can be found in, in a lot of categories, you know, not only being fast and then adding a lot of sounds, technique can also be found in or you add your melodies next to it, or how you combine certain stuff. Oh, yeah, technicality also come for me how complex something can be in terms of sounds, doesn't have to be only drum sounds, it can be also vocal sounds and or you create this kind of stuff in a spectacular way. Dennis, you teach workshops in beatboxing? Can you share a little more about that? Yeah, practice with Max Urban is a singer from Switzerland. And we doing with the loop station, some covers and own stuffs. And I got invited from the school, who told me Actually, it's always great to be in a community where you're able to share your passion with young people. What's the reaction from the kids when you're teaching them? They have a lot of fun. I was teaching a few months ago, this was my third time. And I saw the kids have a lot of fun when I'm doing beatboxing and explain what the speaks beatboxing. And so he asked me a lot how you can do that? And do that sound? Can you do it, please? And yeah, they were so fascinated and that's for me was really appreciated. I think the kids they have a they have a lot of fun because it's, it's you don't need an instrument. You can learn it by yourself if you want to. And kids like to make learn these kind of weird sounds and have like this. And it's also easy to learn by your own. Yeah, as I said, you don't need any instruments, you can just do it at home and try to learn it by yourself. Back it's having on with the So Denis and I did a couple of shows together, where we created a group called Beat Rockz. And one time we were invited to perform at a school for deaf and hearing impaired kids. Oh, wow. So that was like an interesting experience for us. Obviously, what we do is, you know, very focused on, you know, hearing. So that was like a really cool experience to see them get so excited. I remember that. I think they hit they can sense the bass now. Yeah, that is the music. And a lot of them were hearing impaired where you know, they had a hearing aid so they could still hear a good amount. Wow. I always feel like the bass part is hard. That's how you know as soon as you hit that first like, Oh, this person's legit. Alright, so stuffs gonna go down? You know, like, I think that's just because you don't realize that it's someone's voice. When you're practicing a lot, or when you're performing a lot. Do you ever notice that you're like overusing like your vocal cords or your your organs in a way that like, you feel like you're hurting yourself? Or is there a certain way that you can take care of yourself? Yes, there are situations where you get a little bit of pain, especially when you learn new sounds where your muscles not getting used to that position or your growth, struggling with certain sounds. And especially in the bass era, try to learn basis, even if you try to make like, you will gather some pain, right? Maybe if you do it only quick, it doesn't hurt. But if you try to, it starts to and that's the that's the thing with with every sound if I find a new combination with my technique, if I do it longer than five minutes, it's like training, you know, if you if you take too much weight, you're getting weaker, as long as you do it. And the same is with with be boxing as well. The throat is very sensitive. So it's not a good idea to overuse your vocal cords, for sure. But sometimes you don't care, especially on the live events with other Beatboxers, on events, doing a lot of ciphers. What's crazier, I don't think I've ever witnessed a Beatbox cipher. That's basically the same as in breaking or emceeing. Yeah, but you can you can join with the others. It's a cool thing and be boxing you can create a whole song with with 10 beat boxers. Yeah, can be sometimes very weird, but other times can be very Crazy and incredible. I've only really experienced the beatbox community through you, like when you took me to events, but my experience there was that the community is like very supportive of each other. Can you tell us a bit about how that scene works, how people collaborate, or if there's a lot of tension and animosity between each other. I mean, the tension is everywhere in every thing, you know, of course, there is drama as well in beatboxing and it can happen that's one the box it doesn't like the other, but overall 99% of time. It's very family based. It's a huge family and we all love each other. I gained so many friendships through beatboxing, and we all respect each other. Most of the time and every events, there is just love and respect. And of course, online is another topic. Now with COVID. Unfortunately, a lot of you know, the in person events are not possible. Now I've seen there are also online beatbox battles, aside from some of the technical challenges, how does that feeling like I know Dennis, I think you performed in one Francophone battle with Canadian at the French tea boxes. Of course, they have had also problems with with connections and it's not the same feeling or like on the stage for me was was good good experience. The energy is not the same. Of course, as you said, they all have different type of equipments. One has a very nice microphone and a good then set up and we compressor and equalizing on it. And it sounds incredible easily. And others, they only be booked through phone or whatever. And even though they are very good. It's just the quality that holds them back. What I think is a good thing to do between. And of course there are there was online battles before so there is a huge online boxing, and most of the new beat boxes that are coming. They're all from the online scene. And the box on the scene is very huge. So it's always good to have an eye on this scene as well. But it's definitely not the same. But there is a battle coming up on kickback rebel, right, where they made wildcards on YouTube and picked out eight winners for the battles. And they all sense the eight winners they all send the same interface, the same microphone and the same headset, though they all have the same system to battle on the online battle, which is a good idea. And of course, stuff only works if you have sponsors. But that's that's I think the most fair setup for this kind of Have you guys ever done a group ad or two out to battle together? together not against each other? There was there there was a fun battle in Austria there is a battle Austria in growth there every year is there is a very good prestige beatbox battle. One of my favorites by the way just a week chilling there with the craziest the most is just incredible. And at the end of the week, they always do like after party. Oh, yeah, they did like a tune to battle where you have to pick out of a hat with your friends to beatbox with. Then Denis was together with B-Art. He is one of the world's best the boxer at the moments like top four or five Netherlands from the Netherlands and I pick the guy from Austria, who was not bad, but I think he was a little bit big. He was very drunk. He was nervous. And so I kind of had to carry around, right? Yeah, that was the time only time when Denis beat me. But yeah, but he was incredible. Definitely. What to gather, we never battled against others. We chose we performed together. And the thing is for me only that I've I prefer solo beatboxing over duel beat boxing. I mean, I can perform with all the beat boxes but just battling itself. It's just so much pressure, even solo battles. I never really liked that pressure and that I prefer to judging. Yeah, should we do maybe a quick showcase? I mean, I wouldn't mind that at all. Wow what a blessing. Oh my gosh, that was so nasty. What advice would you give each other's younger self? To learn certain sounds that didn't exist it back then was to be the first at that point as well. Definitely showing my younger self some new sounds. Otherwise I will not change anything. I was pretty happy with how everything worked. I mean, I got world champ, what more can you reach, right. And I'm pretty happy how also how it went after the World Championships. Oh, for me, I will learn my younger self new sounds are thought to be more relaxed on myself on my beatbox routines. But I have a lot of pressure. Of course my brother was the world champ. It was not easy for me to be good in my box routines. And of course on the stage. I think also more self confidence, confidence on stage, being more confident in your routines and everything. He used to struggle with that. But it definitely got way better. So that's the advice you would give him to be more confident. Yeah, definitely the same. Well, even though I gave him this ice, like in this days, but you know, it's easier to say than when you're on stage. You blackout sometimes you forget everything you told yourself. And yeah, when you're in this tunnel vision you sometimes forget Okay, be more relaxed, or don't focus. Don't think too much about your whole routines or just be more relaxed. course you have to remember your routines of horse has to be good, but sometimes you can be too much better now. But I think the confidence also comes with experience. Yeah, 100% so Razor is an only child so he doesn't understand the dynamic or the relationship of having a sibling. But now you have a sibling that you share the same passion. Can you describe what that feels like? Well, we pretty much independently learned be boxing. I mean, I never told him to start the box. He started by himself. Of course. It's nice to show him what I learned new. And he's picked this out. I've learned a new sound you know, for example, and he's trying to make As well, and he does the same with me, he shows me sound or a combination. He asked me, can you do that? And then I hear it. And maybe I can do it. Sometimes I can do an audit. If I cannot do it, then I try to learn it until I can do it. And then I look, then it's I can do it now. Oh, it's like we Yeah, we definitely give us some stuff learned sometimes. And also sharing the boxes on the scene that are new, But there was never like real rivalry between you two? no, never. I think there was never any rivalry. I always wanted to succeed, what he's doing. And I guess, aim the same me. Now even if you if we will battle and he will win, I will be so happy for him. For me, there's never bad energy, this kind of switch the topics a little bit. That city you also got into producing. And I'd say you've probably produced for every major Swiss hip hop artists and you've produced for international artists as well. How do you think you use the skills of beatboxing when you produce? Like, are there transferable skills? Yeah, on both sides, definitely. Of course, when I make beats, I always have certain rhythms by one make drums, certain rhythms in my head, how it should sound on a melody, or my phone is full with with recordings of melodies and stuff that I will use on the beat. My head is always creating, you know, not only for beatboxing always, also for music. And when I start to make beats, most of time I set a tempo. I make the melody. When I have the melody, I started to be box over melody and try to find the rhythm that could fit on the melody. Yeah, that's how I create the beat most of the time. Is there a swift style? There's something like the sets with to pop apart? No, we are. I mean, we have we have an artist that lake that created like the folk music from Swiss. How do you say? folklore? Yeah, like, can mash mash up. He incorporated a lot of the folkloric traditional Swiss music into his beats, and was very successful with it. Yes, yes. But other than that, I think a lot of Swiss artists copying what's new from America and from Germany, I guess there are some some rappers or MCs that are trying to be original. But most of the time it's also I can say it's also the producers fault, right? Because the producers are giving the rappers the beats. As a producer, you always want to be on time with them with the music and you try to create the also try to make the trap beats or the drill beats. And of course, the rappers enjoying this music as well. And they want to be a part of it as well. That's pretty much most of the time the thing in Switzerland, I cannot really remember anyone in Switzerland that I could say other than Blake who created something very original. Maybe I'm wrong. I could be wrong as well. But the how I experienced it with with artists in the studio is just like, Can you do a beat like that? I want to rap like this on it, you know 90% like that. So when you're given full rein into whatever you want to create, what kind of flavor is your music about? It depends. I love to create every kind of genres. I mean, of course, mainly hip hop based. I like to sample a lot. I like to make this boom bap West Coast beats I like to make trap deeds, I don't really care. And of course, I also try to create my own stuff. I now recently started to make the kind of lo fi jazzy lo fi beats. But I added all the drums are beatbox sounds can also sing the choir by myself and my father edit guitar. So I tried next to the stuff that I make for for the rappers that what they want. What I also enjoyed to do of course, I also tried to create stuff for myself and I feel like it's original. I love our intro song. When razor like Oh, I got somebody who can do it. I was like, Yes. And then literally the minute we listened to it, I was like, This is so official. So good. It's just so I know it's just very hip hop. It just feels really. It feels like you feel something from it. Organic. Yeah. And I think that's what's really dope about listening to the live vbox and seeing the incredible sounds that come out of people. But out of you guys, when you guys performed also at our wedding, people still talking about that. That's like one of the highlights of this was wedding was that performance? You guys did? Yeah. Remember, that's one thing, I always appreciate the both of you that you're very humble, and you're always down to support the cause. Like if there's something that is good for the scene or good for the culture, you guys are always very open to sharing your knowledge or sharing your skills. And I've always really appreciated that about both of you. Thank you very much. You guys are also vegan. Is there any benefit that you notice for beatboxing being vegan? No, I don't know it's on the beatbox. side. Other than it's most of the time is if you go to events is hard to to find vegan, it depends where you go. If you go to China, it's almost impossible to find a vegan restaurant or eat somewhere vegan, others country are easier, but benefit on the boxing. I don't know. I didn't help anything different there. Be honest, now would have been a good moment to say if you eat Dennis's site, he becomes a boxer in the world. For real Dennis, maybe you can pitch real quick that you're just starting a new company where you're producing seitan maybe you can let people know what seitan is and what your goals are. Okay, first, I want to eat up and I never found the vegan about meat. Yeah, then I started search on internet recipes. And then I started to create it, put it some other spices in it. And so I started to create my own site on its with gluten. The rest is with spices. Now I started to create my own business with I think the goal is to tell this alternative to meat to like kebab shops, because here in this area, vegans or the vegetarian most of time have a hard time. And I think it's a clever strategy to try this out. When I say the choice to be vegan come from, I ate meat until I was 2829. Four years ago, I stopped to get vegan. And back then I used to eat every day. Like really a lot of meat. a sandwich in the morning it had eaten it two or three times a day. I thought of meat really and yeah, then I had some discussions with some friends that are where we can and watching documentaries. Then I was like okay, look, I try it out. See how it works. Maybe I eat one once a week, fish or chicken. Or we can go from there. But as soon as we started, I realize okay, there are so many alternatives that are very tasty and nice. I don't really need that meat anymore. But the hardest thing was more like cheese, like the mozzarella and the pizza and farming. JOHN on the pasta is was the biggest challenge. Sure, because there are until even today there are not very good cheese alternatives, to be honest. But I got used to that as well. And I stuck to it. There's a lot of hip hop artists that are vegan. Like KRS-one. Will I am Jermaine Dupri. Yeah, they're like creating restaurants and things like this. So I think it's just a natural solution solution. Yeah, to go and decide to create your own solution. So that's much brought to you Dennis for creating that. It's delicious, too, by the way, so I think it's it's the future. Yeah, because it's tasty. And that's the thing that having the flavors and you taking the time to find the right flavors. I think it's super cool to decide to solve a problem. Besides your choices, you know, eating vegan. Also, in general, you're very focused on your health. And maybe you can tell us a bit more about what you do to maintain your health. For me, I doing a lot of sports to be healthy, and watch some videos or be more healthier and of course cold shower, from the Wim Hof experience. cold showers, cold showers everyday, everyday. Yeah, cold showers. Good for immune system very good system. We are vegan and you take cold showers in Switzerland in the winter. We also do, we also do some breathing techniques. There is there is a guy called Wim Hof, who created like, breathing technique and cold exposure and stuff like that. He has a lot of science behind him as well. It's very religious. The Iceman. Yeah. And yeah, we got pretty much inspired to try this out as well. And of course, in the beginning cold showers because you don't want to do it and you're mostly the mind right the mind the person wants you to to make it What doesn't kill you. Of course, in rare situations, maybe yes, if you have like a heart problems and stuff like that, maybe it's not the best thing to do, if you're healthy, can only benefit from it, because it's very good for the immune system and for the blood flow and even for for your mind, you know, you can train your mind with that, as well. Also, with the breathing technique, stuff like this, talking about breathing techniques. I'm always fascinated watching the beatboxer do like a 10 minute routine, you have to have crazy breathing techniques to go for such a long time. How do you train that? When I was beatboxing or started to be boxer I was be boxing I never was thinking about that topic. You know, you will learn that automatically when you start to be boxing you realize there are sounds that going outward sounds and inward sounds when you be boxing combined this kind of stuff, for example into like. So that goes in and you brief it is a sound and also a trick that you can breathe in this moment, the other sounds going outward. And this is something that automatically happens because you reach a point where everything goes outwards. And then you feel like okay, but I have struggled breathing. So let me find a break in this routine or a sounds where I can brief. You just take a open hi hat to inhale are usually high hats where you inhale or other sounds to breathe with my nose, as well. Like I do sounds with my mouth. And the in the in the same time I can breathe. Right. So if, for example, of course the breathing, you don't really hear it through the nose, you try to hide it. And that's where the illusion is getting from. Also, when people think and do your brief, you don't notice. Because it happens everything when you do it. I'm still trying to understand like the basics of the box, if I was just going to practice the most basic, basic, basic sound are there like the basic bass sound, this is the basic high sound this is I mean, at the end of the day, you can start wherever you want. Of course, I will always suggest to start with drums. If you imagine a drum set, you can see the cake. You can see like all the snares for the hi hat. And these are the three elements basics foundation of the beatboxing, right, where everything kind of starts. And if you can master or learn the sounds in a rhythm, I think that's a very good start to learn beatboxing and then from there on, you can add bass sounds or other sounds or other drum stuff. I just have a thought about Raul Midon. He's a jazz artist. I think he's partially blind as well. But he plays guitar and he sings and then he goes into this breakdown where it sounds like he's a trumpet. Oh, he does a trumpet impression. Yeah. And there's so unexpected. Like, you're just like Why? I think there are certain artists that have used their voice in creating music, you know, like Bobby McFerrin predecessors before hip hop. Do you take inspiration from people like that, or from genres that might be considered far away from Hip Hop? Well, of course, I try to learn boxing not only from Hip Hop, from my style, it has a lot of Drum and Bass influences well, patterns and if I hear Drum and Bass or any kind of music, of course I study for me, it's like, I hate music, most of the time, technical music, in that case, like drum bass, me kind of EDM music. I always hear the patterns and try to mimic with my beatbox. In jazz, you can do that as well. There are definitely beatbox artists that are more influenced by this kind of honors. And there'll be boxes who also very good in imitating saxophones, or Pets are this kind of instruments. proxy to be boxer. What is your favorite quote or motto? If you believe you are someone in terms of like, you have reached a status, you're someone important. You stop to become someone like you stop to evolve into something better or higher. kind of always be humble. Don't Don't think like, Oh, now I made it. Now I can shell even if you made it now you have to prove that you, you know, when I became World Champion, it didn't end for me there. I wanted to still to prove everyone that I can stand next to the other newbie boxers. Yeah, that's definitely a model or a quote that I go for. A long time ago, I interviewed Rahzel, and I took you with me as I was a huge moment for me. in that interview, he said something that stuck with me that he said, I'm not the best beatboxer there is. But what makes me the best is longevity, that I stuck with it even when everyone else stopped beatboxing in like the late 80s. I just kept doing it and brought it to a point where I started inspiring a new generation to do it. And the funny thing is, I met Rahzel again three years ago, and I didn't know if he remembers me or if he knows who I am. If he follows the scene. I don't know, right? So I was there and next to him. And I want to say hi to him. And he was like, I remember you I know who you are. Don't worry. Unless they had to Amen. For me, bro. I talked a lot with other beatbox when I was standing next to him. I was a huge fan boy, chorus my main habit, my biggest inspiration back then. And I was so happy that he knew who I was or even remembered me. I don't know if you remember me from that interview? Or if he just remembers me as a world champ was feeling so cool. And I'm glad that it was a positive experience. Sometimes we meet our heroes, and they're not always what we expect. So that's super dope that you had like a positive experience meeting somebody that inspired you reading that you won as such a young age. How old were you in 2009? I was 20 becoming 21. But I was not the youngest wolcen. guy before me from Australia, he was 18. Wow. I'm always interested in how people got their their names to hip hop names or their stage names. And so how did you get how did you guys get your names? I used to write my name with the C: Cede. And it's coming from compact disc now. Like a CD player, whatever. And when I started beatboxing random mind who used to rap. He said, We don't need the CD needed to listen to music we have you. And there was like, Oh, that's a nice idea. Instead of having only a C and a D, I edit e between the letters. But because there is a big company in Switzerland, same writings, Ed, my manager back then told me that maybe you should switch leather here and there. Just don't get into troubles some way so instead of C, I added a Z that's how I came to my artist name for me was back in the days there was the movie, Denis the Menace. And yeah, that's how I get my name from the movie. Yeah. So you were a little kid doing a bunch of like mischief. Yeah, like getting into stuff as a little kid. Yeah. Then is was not bad. Bad of a guy. It's more like the word by Yeah, that was for sure. I think that's good as a stage name for this too. Because you're battling you're like, Man, this guy is gonna give me trouble. Yeah. Yeah. Is there anything else you guys want to talk about? Is there anything you want to share about any misconceptions about beatboxing or educate our listeners on any particular thing? I can definitely tell everyone where they can find the best source to to learn boxing or to find the best be boxes. Go to YouTube and just find swissbit box which is I think the biggest box channel on YouTube with like almost 3 million There you find a lot of crazy beatboxers, if you will, if you're interested in that. We will find also tons of tutorials and people who are teaching you the basics. And it's very fun to do is very, it's not that hard to learn as some people think. And if you have any questions or you want to know something, you can also hit me up on my social medias. Yeah, we'll put all the links for your social medias in our show notes, so people can just click right, we end all our interviews with the question what is hip hop to you? Um, hip hop for me is as I experienced it, doing something with other people or sharing the same love same interests with other people and building it together. If it's B boying or breakdancing or beatboxing, I always experienced people, they all want to learn the same thing. And we push each other, we support each other. This is definitely one of the big things for me. Love for the community. Read the same, share and do some things study below. Thank you so much to our guests, Denis the Menace and Zede for taking the time and being so open while sharing your perspective with us. Some of the gems we took away from this interview were a person who masters patience, masters of skill they are being patient to learn. Curiosity opens our eyes to a new world, which in turn drives our hunger for knowledge keeps us experimenting and is the engine for achievement. Humility is staying teachable. Regardless of how much you already know. Our theme music was beatbox by Denis the Menace and produced a Zede. A big shout out to the brothers from Switzerland. The background music was produced by Taki Brano. A big thank you to our brosky from Providence. A huge thank you to the global beatbox community. We see you. Our podcast basically runs on coffee. To keep our show running you can support by buying us coffee through the link in our show notes. Much love to Olivia aka B-girl sweet rock. Thank you for all your contributions to the Swiss scene with breakthrough and your educational endeavors. We would love to get your feedback questions and any suggestions you might have. You can reach out to us on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook @soulidarityLLC or via email soulidarityllc@gmail.com. If you like today's show, please tell a friend about our podcast where I was saying to your mother or your father sent a telegram. In our next episode, we have Hasan Stevens aka DJ Maestro. He is a leading youth advocate, mentor, entrepreneur, educator and the executive director and founder of good life foundation. Don't forget to subscribe to the show and leave a rating and review. We'll see you on our next episode. Thank you for listening to our podcast. Now Seriously though, thank you. I am Candy. I'm DJ Razor Cut. An this is souls of hi