AllMovie

An oft-overlooked aspect of hip-hop music gets its due in Breath Control: The History of the Human Beatbox. Beatboxing is the art of producing musical sounds, particularly percussion, without the use of instruments. Filmmaker Joey Garfield traces beatboxing from the early days, when the simple rhythms of Darren "Buff" Robinson helped make The Fat Boys a household name, to the amazing technical skills of such contemporary artists as Rahzel and Scratch of The Roots, and Anthony Rivera, also known as Click tha Supah Latin. As one artist, Chris Jung, explains, beatboxing "stemmed from the need to make music now." It grew out of a necessity to produce music when instruments and turntables were not available. Doug E. Fresh, Biz Markie, and others explain what they brought to the art, while Congo-born vocalist Marie Daulne of Zap Mama expounds on both the universality and the ethnic diversity of vocal rhythm-making. Breath Control won the Festival Choice Award at the 2002 New York Underground Film Festival. It was also featured at the 2002 Tribeca Film Festival and the 2002 Urbanworld Film Festival.