Braving the beat
Beatboxing is fast gaining popularity as a musical genre in Sri Lanka and group beatboxing is just starting to get a local foothold. Blaze is one such beatboxing group who have already made quite a name for themselves.
Pic courtesy Blaze Entertainment
Describing themselves as a bunch of music crazed kids trying to leave a resounding mark in the music industry Blaze started out as three members : Sashvinth Ravinath, Lakshan Wijesooriya and Dahan Ranawana. Now they have expanded to five members with Ahamed Rifdhan and Avineash Amarnath. While their brand has also expanded to include photographers, videographers and audio engineers working under the name BLAZE, the group came to be owing to a happy accident.
While Sashvinth was away for his GCE A/Levels Dahan and Lakshan started performing at small gigs, and after exams were over Sashvinth joined them with the aim of taking the local beatboxing scene by storm and shedding some light on beatboxing in Sri Lanka.
When they told their parents, the reaction was supportive, but also coupled with a warning to make sure they don’t stray from their education or other activities by turning it into an obsession. Once they launched, the group were hit because of the technique and the musicality of the group.
Despite the many challenges, they eventually went on to win the 1st runners award up at the NSBM student talent show. Since then, they have made numerous appearances, including TNL Onstage and Chokolaate Centerstage.
“Our inspiration actually was to change the concept of beatboxing for good. People view beatboxers as people with an abnormality of making weird sounds and we wanted to show them that there was more to it than that with beatboxing,” Dahan said.
The groups says they draw inspiration from the European group named Berywam, who’ve developed a unique style of beatboxing, infused with songs and dialogue. Speaking of their plans for the future, they have already begun production on an album which they plan on releasing soon.This features other artists and they hope this will move forward in terms of Sri Lankan audience reach. However, their biggest dream is to represent Sri Lanka at Asia’s GOT TALENT to show the world that this tiny island has people who could achieve tremendous heights if the opportunity presents itself. The group says the only thing holding them back now is finances, and that they’re on the lookout for sponsors.
(Paramie Jayakody)