Bootzenkatzen Connoisseur

To summarize the video, 

He explained how he was given the choice between using Swissbeatbox’s (the organization behind GBB) judging criteria or his own personal one

He went into his personal criteria and how it’s centered on musicality - “technicality ultimately exists beneath musicality” and that art must convey emotions, thoughts, or ideas to their audience

He went into examples of this in music and how he thinks they express musicality

Hans Zimmer’s “First Step” from Interstellar and how it expresses the vastness of space

The Weeknd’s “The Hills” + a remix of “The Hills”

He established the point that there are certain kinds of music that are pure showcases of technicality and he will still judge them as such- which was foreshadowing for Footboxg

He noted that he felt safer to showcase his unique judging perspective since SBX took the mean of the median 3 judge scores for the final ranking

He made judgments based on how a track would be received if it were on a big stage like Coachella or something - but also how might it be received by great musicians- his examples were Beethoven, Hans Zimmer, Daft Punk, Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, Michael Jackson, and Queen

He judged more strictly when something went against his personal values

He then jumped into reacting to/analyzing the wildcard winners and then why he placed them where he did

Not gonna go too deep into each analysis of the wildcards but I want to say I feel vindicated in his H-Has analysis where he talked about pitching and melodic techniques falling under technicality. I’ve had this same opinion for quite a while now, and to be honest, his framework of technicality folded into musicality is a fascinating way of viewing it. Generally most of his comments for each wildcard are objective observations with his own subjective comments (for example, he’ll say “this was not pleasant to my ears”). Now, to actually get to your question, his judging approach is a mix of a new maverick approach and something that’s kinda already existed but is only now being articulated. It is the product of something that’s been discussed and debated about in the beatboxing scene for a long time now, specifically the relationship between musicality and technicality in beatboxing. If you want a refresher on these two concepts, this essay and this essay both talk about them. Historically, I’ve seen a lot of people use musicality as an empty word to describe any beatboxing with a melody, but this fails to capture phenomena such as there being various kinds of melodic styles, the existence of melodic techniques that I mentioned above, and song structure in absence of melody. As the scene has advanced, however, I see more people including the idea of intentionality within musicality- with intentionality being taking an idea and expressing it with your beatboxing. 

Intentionality also sums up Wing’s judging approach. He literally defines musicality as the ability to convey emotions, thoughts, or ideas. To support this, his main criticisms of the wildcard winners were where he either disagreed with the idea/intention of a piece, or saw a lack of intention (when a choice was made arbitrarily). Notably, he was particularly harsh on G-Wizz and ABX for these reasons. The reason that this is also a maverick/new approach is that nobody’s judged so boldly (or at least so publicly) in favor of intentionality, especially not for such a high level event as GBB wildcards (which is lowkey also somewhat opaque in its judging process, so there’s no way to know if it’s been done before).

I do actually have a lot of thoughts about this approach. Intentionality is one thing that I think is really good for the beatbox scene- and I would say it’s an underrated skill for beginner/intermediate beatboxers to have. I’ve seen many a Jam 1 (the main group jam for the Beatbox Community Discord server) where people spam whatever sounds are popular or sometimes even just copy famous beatboxers with no real direction or idea of what they want to do. On the flip side, I’ve seen several people with limited soundkits and techniques go very far in competitions because of their use of intentionality. There are also many people who are technically gifted who once lacked intentionality that suddenly skyrocket in success the moment they start to express it. I really respect Wing for believing in it so strongly to the point of imposing that vision onto the vetting process for the most venerated and prestigious battle in beatboxing. I genuinely think that Wing sees intentionality and beatboxing as songs/music to present to the world as the future of the scene.

The thing is, that vision of his is actually something I have a problem with. Let me explain. Beatboxing has its roots in hip-hop. The origins of the artform as it looks like today is from rappers freestyling on top of beatboxing, which quickly changed into beatboxers themselves freestyling with/against each other. This speaks to another aspect of beatboxing that I would argue is extremely important- spontaneity. Honestly, I might do a whole separate essay on the relationship between spontaneity and intentionality, because there’s a lot to the strengths and weaknesses of each that could be talked about. However, I want to highlight that beatboxing as an artform is of live performance- even if it’s cool to watch recordings, at one point it had to have been performed live from the mouth of a human being. Part of being a live performer is being able to capture the moment, and this is doubly important in a battle context where you have to both share with and capture the moment from your opponent. Wing himself actually won one of the most impactful battles in recent history by doing exactly this. In the battle, his opponent Blackroll declared that “I control all the room”. Wing countered with his famous song Dopamine, and simply said “control” as if to say “here’s what real crowd control looks like”. All that to say, spontaneity is a core part of beatboxing that should not be removed.

Dopamine went viral at the end of 2024, and Wing has since become a celebrity in Korea. He’s been on national television, opened for K-pop megastar G-Dragon, and is now preparing to release a new (presumably beatbox only) album to the world. Now, if you’ve watched Wing’s appearances on Korean television, talk shows, etc, you’ve probably seen him perform Dopamine or perhaps Sailor (with fellow beatboxer Hiss). In each one of these performances, they’re done in almost the exact same way. There’s no excitement of something new, there’s no moment to capture, it’s a preplanned and prepared song to be played over and over again to hopefully reach newer and newer audiences. I do want to point out that this is actually very technically impressive, because it takes a certain amount of practice and talent to be able to replicate a performance to the smallest detail with no mistakes. That being said, having a solidified single version of a song to be done the same over and over means that any changes aren’t opportunities, but mistakes. Even when he did Dopamine in GBB25 against Blackroll, he actually switches keys by accident at 4:33 in the video (if you check his breakout performance of it a year earlier, he’s actually supposed to do his liproll bass an octave or two below the note he opens the song with, which is an F). This is to the point where even he got sick of doing the same performance over and over again. In his judge showcase for the Korean Beatbox Championship last year, he faked out the audience by beginning Dopamine and then stopped, saying “I’ve decided that I’m not going to do Dopamine today. Do you know how many times over the last half a year I’ve had to do it?” 

Wing’s in the K-pop world now, and while I’m admittedly biased against K-pop and pop music in general, I do think there are genuine criticisms of it that are true. I think the criticism that pop and K-pop can feel manufactured to be as inoffensive as possible does hold some weight. You can see it when he notes something is unpleasant to his ear, or when he says that he considers how each wildcard might be received at Coachella or by great musicians (that are still outsiders to the scene). You can see it in the implication that he wants something less spontaneous and more refined to present to the world, the implication that he’s ashamed of showing off G-Wizz or ABX. If I remember correctly, Wing has said he aspires to win a Grammy for beatboxing, and one can see how G-Wizz and ABX don’t necessarily fit into the category of Grammy winning music. I think Wing’s expectations and vision for beatboxing is coming from that K-pop world, where it’s overly formalized, perfectionist, and lacks room for human error (and the innovation resulting from it). And when there’s no room for human error, there’s no room for human beatboxing. I think if the scene moves towards this vision with no room for its underground hip-hop roots, it could destroy the foundation it’s been built on.

I am being overly harsh and kind of dramatic about potential consequences. In reality, formalizing beatboxing would see more opportunities for people like me and the people around me, giving both valuable experience and also real money. For one, I’m someone who does genuinely believe that work (including creating art) deserves proper compensation. Another thing is it might paradoxically make it easier and harder to start beatboxing, as there will be more resources for beginners but it will stymie people who try to approach beatboxing from a non formalized angle. By shrinking what sounds and techniques are considered palatable and usable, the artform will see people striving less to be themselves and more to be some palatable ideal beatboxer. It will move the scene towards amazing art in the form of concerts and music videos, but also away from battles, freestyling, and jamming. It’s a mixed bag, and despite my gripes there is real, powerful good that it can bring to the scene. I should also point out the fact that Wing cannot directly control every event and every beatboxer around the globe, so multiple visions of beatboxing can exist at the same time.

I want to note that a lot of my arguments here originate directly from some other beatboxers and/or are inspired by personal conversations I’ve had with them. I’m going to keep our conversation private, but Ghost has publicly said that he mostly agreed with Wing’s analysis while slightly disagreeing about ABX and Marvelous (I personally would throw in G-Wizz in there too, I liked his alien theme). Sonus, the beatboxer who translated the video to English for Wing, has also publicly stated that “I personally disagree with a lot of what Wing said in the video as much as I agree with his perspective on musicality”, and “There's gotta be beatboxers that go full ‘weird / outside the box’ for the progress of the artform in general in my opinion”. Some other beatboxers I spoke with have hinted at having similar opinions. Despite the dissenting voices, these are just opinions, and there’s no hate for Wing from anyone of us. Sonus himself has said he did the translation because Wing is his friend rather than some kind of coworker.

You just got a lot of criticism from me, but I have nothing but respect for Wing. His ambition and vision for beatboxing is something that I can at least sympathize with if not empathize with. His video on this has actually made me respect and appreciate him and the role he plays in the scene even more. On a more personal note, he has inspired and influenced me in my own beatboxing journey quite a lot, and I’ve been a fan since I discovered his GBB 2018 wildcard at the end of 2017 (I’ve been yelling about him being robbed 8 years before GBB 25, ha!). Please go support him and listen to his new album Dopamine when it comes out before the end of the month (yes, the album is named after the song). 

Remember 2020 and the lockdown era? I want to call back to a concept that was somewhat discussed by the news and science communicators back then, specifically superspreaders and superspreader events. Under the framework of social network epidemiology, a superspreader is (roughly) an individual who spreads an infectious disease to far more people than the average spreader. This kinda makes sense. Many people interact with roughly the same set of people every day. The same coworkers and boss, the same friend group, the same household/family, the same classmates, etc. But some people have many different interactions with many different kinds of people. If you’re not someone that’s well connected, you probably know someone that is. And if you don’t know someone that is, then you definitely know someone who knows someone else that is. Even people who aren’t social butterflies or people who don’t have many friends can be surprisingly well connected. 

What makes people particularly susceptible to receiving/catching a disease is being connected to different groups of people. If you know a lot of people, but everyone is in the same friend group, then that’s not actually that bad for the purposes of spreading disease. Let’s say you get sick, and also get your friends A and B who are in the same friend group sick. In an alternate scenario where you only got friend A sick, because they also know friend B they will likely get friend B sick anyways. A superspreader however, will receive disease from and give to groups that would otherwise never interact. Someone might only have two friends but if those two are from different friend groups, then that one person has the potential to spread a sickness from friend group A to B, infecting potentially tens of people who could spread it to ten more people each and so on. 

A superspreader event can create a perfect storm of conditions that allow its attendees to become superspreaders. Things such as having many people in confined spaces or having lots of different people come in close contact with each other can contribute to the creation of an event. Notable examples include:

- A business conference in Boston in late February 2020, where it was found that 300,000 Covid-19 cases (and about 1.6% of all US cases) could be traced back to the conference

- A doctor who contracted SARS in 2003 before traveling to a family wedding in a hotel Hong Kong, infecting at least 16 other hotel guests who then brought it to Singapore, Canada, Taiwan, and Vietnam

- Mary Mallon (Typhoid Mary), a cook in early 20th century New York City. She was thought to be an asymptomatic carrier of Typhoid fever, and through the food she served infected up to 57 people with the bacteria

Superspreader events often end up happening because of an unfortunate set of coincidences, where two people randomly making contact and spreading sickness can have spiraling consequences. Now imagine some kind of fucked up scenario where instead of leaving it to random chance, you specifically tried to maximize the chance of spreading (airborne) infectious diseases. I wonder what that would look like?

It was about time I got back to talking about beatboxing. 

If it’s not obvious, my point is that beatbox events are unfortunately amazing at being superspreader events. I think it’s self explanatory that the hobby that results in the most physical spit and breath flying out of people’s mouths would spread the flu and the cold and other respiratory diseases a lot. Coming home sick from an event is a regular occurrence, and we've dubbed the phenomenon "the beatbox flu". However, I want to dive a little deeper on specific mechanisms that I believe contribute to the superspreader nature of beatbox events and then muse on potential solutions. 

The Journey:

Beatboxing can be a niche hobby, so the number of beatboxers who like going to events in a given city can be quite small. This means that for battles, shows, festivals and such, many beatboxers come in from outside the local area. Oftentimes they come from the same region (for example MA -> NY or London -> Bristol), but people can come in from far away, sometimes even from other countries. For example, in the 2025 West Coast Beatbox Championship, only 4 out of the 12 competitors were actually from the west coast of the United States. Even in national championships, there have been instances of people from other countries competing. The 2012 American beatbox champion was Rizumik, a Portuguese citizen, and due to a strange set of circumstances the current equivalent to the Japanese champion is PACMax, who is a French man living in France.[1]

The logistics of traveling means that you’re going to be taking a car, train, airplane, or even a boat for a long period of time. And being crammed into a small enclosed space with other people for a long time will obviously increase the odds of getting others sick. For trains and plane rides with transfers through large hubs (large train terminals and/or airports) it only increases the odds of superspreading, as you might infect x number of people who then go on to cause outbreaks in x different countries. Of course, this applies on the trip back home from an event as well.

1. There has been no Japanese national beatbox championship since 2021, the closest event they have to it right now is BeatCity Japan, which is open to anyone in the world.

The Stay:

Even if an event isn’t multiple days/nights, it can be exhausting to travel multiple hours to get to an event and then immediately take off to travel a number of hours again to go home, especially in the dead of night. Event goers can book a hotel or equivalent, stay with a group in a homestay or something similar, or if they’re lucky, stay with family or a friend in the area. Being in the privacy of a hotel room can help minimize time spent with others and the chance of getting sick or spreading sickness. However, sometimes that’s not realistic in its affordability. If you book a hostel or are in a group homestay, especially for multiple nights you will be spending a decent amount of time in the vicinity of others. Staying with friends or family depends on luck of having any in the area in the first place and what their accommodations are like.

The Venue:

This is also largely luck based, and I'll make a disclaimer that event organizers can be extremely limited in what venues they have access to. Sometimes it really is just having a good relationship with a venue owner by chance. That being said, the venue can still contribute to superspreading. A smaller space will undoubtedly compress people closer together, and less ventilation can once again influence the spread. Another note, I’m not trying to put blame on the organizers, but the last event I went to was at a bar that had no soap in its bathroom. I had my own hand sanitizer so I’m not gonna blame getting sick on that specifically, but it wasn’t fun to wash my hands and realize there was no soap midway through. Another thing is loud noise at events and the sound of a crowd can mean you can’t hear someone unless they’re up close and personal.

The Event:

There are certain aspects of beatboxing culture and the conventions of battles that I think help contribute to getting people sick. First is the circle jam (or jamming in general). Beatboxers tend to be very encouraging about having everyone’s voice be heard and giving everyone a shot, and the circle jam is a way to do that. The way it goes is that a group of people start a beat, and each person has a handful of bars before they pass the beat to the next person. After a couple rotations or after enough people get tired of doing it, they finish. This means you’re gonna be inhaling the spit of at least the two people next to you, or if it’s a small enough group, the entire circle. A given night will have several circle jams occur, some for fun, and some for recording content. Sometimes they’ll just happen at a homestay group and not even at the event. The second major thing is gonna sound really disgusting, but I am proud to say the global beatbox community as a whole is moving away from this. Even still, I think it’s better if I put a trigger warning here.

TW: I’m gonna talk about some unhygienic/unsanitary stuff below

The second major aspect I want to talk about is microphone sharing. If you watch old battle videos it’s really common, and two battlers going back and forth will pass the mic similar to a rap battle. Unfortunately, unlike a rap battle, beatboxing results in a much larger amount of spit going into the mic. Beatbox microphones get wet and when they dry they get crusty. For the record, the part that gets covered in the most spit is removable and therefore washable, and beatboxers do wash their mics. But in a battle setting where people have to beatbox right after each other, there’s not any time to thoroughly wipe them. I’ve been at events where I’ve had to share mics and it really is unbelievably disgusting to taste and sometimes inhale other people’s spit. The latest US national championship (2025) had mic sharing at the event and I know at least a quarter of the top 16 got sick afterwards, and I got sick for a whole month afterwards.[2] There’s an argument about fairness of sound for beatboxers using different mics, but it’s 2026. Organizers can afford a second mic of the same brand, or allow participants to bring their own mics (and even restrict that to certain brands/models if it matters).

2. I WAS COUGHING FOR THE ENTIRE DAMN MONTH OF DECEMBER AND INTO JANUARY INCLUDING THE HOLIDAYS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

TW over At this point I’ll be getting every vaccine I can (autism makes a better beatboxer anyways), bringing hand sanitizer everywhere, and wearing a mask whenever applicable. Feel free to make more suggestions in the comments for protecting people from getting sick. More engagement makes me happy but also the less people get sick with things the better.