KEY POINTS:
As a 3-year-old grasping the English language, Darren Foreman wasn't content just coming out with words.
"I was simultaneously learning to make loads of different noises, like aeroplanes and impressions of people and objects and doors creaking," says the human beatboxer.
"I was fascinated by tapes. When you
speed them up, everything about the sound changes and they always change at the same rate."
It drove his parents mad but Foreman, now 25, has forged a career out of his unusual skill. The self-confessed "weird kid" has appeared a finalist on the BBC TV talent quest, When Will I Be Famous, won the British beatbox championships twice, and last year toured as support for Groove Armada.
His Kitchen Diaries series, in which he acts like Jamie Oliver mixing up a cottage pie of man-made sounds, has been viewed on YouTube more than two million times.
On Saturday he performs in Auckland as part of the Bacardi B-Live event, with Kiwi jazz man Mark de Clive-Lowe and Basement Jaxx singer Sharlene Hector.
You needn't be a hip-hop head or a free-diving champ to appreciate his skills. Call him a cheat if you like but Beardyman starts by recording his initial beatboxing (making imitations of electronic beats with his mouth), then looping the tracks, much like a producer making beats. You'd have a hard time differentiating between Beardyman's version of Brown Paper Bag and the Roni Size original.
His Auckland gig will be a mix of hip-hop and drum 'n' bass covers and mash-ups, some improvised and all done with his mouth.
"That's the thing with this live looping which is so great," he says. "I use these machines so I'm not constantly breathing. I did a battle jam in England with the DMC [DJ] champ, this massive five-hour jam where we get people from the crowd up on stage, record them and do scratches with their voice. It was so long it was ridiculous. But if you're having fun you can go on for as long as you can stay awake."
As a 3-year-old he wasn't aware that what he was doing had a name. Then in 2001, while at university, he went to a gig by Rahzel (the Roots' resident beatboxer).
"I thought, come on, that's easy. I wasn't that good at the time but I got better."
Naming himself after the facial hair he was sporting at the time, he soon got bookings - and not just within the hip-hop scene.
"I've played every kind of night you can imagine - hip-hop, ridiculous rave nights, corporate gigs - but only recently people are starting to realise drum 'n' bass is the type of music that really gets me going."
Beardyman is the first to acknowledge that the world isn't exactly short on beatboxers.
You need only visit YouTube to see the next generation, including one too young to go to school, showing off their pipes. Sceptics will point to films like Police Academy and argue that the likes of Michael Winslow have been doing this kind of thing for years.
But as fans of Beardyman's Kitchen Diaries series will know, he's also a comedian. In one episode he instructs his viewers to get hold of some white noise.
"You can get this from your TV," he explains. "I got mine from Sainsbury's."
He's also been known to dress up as Elvis, a monkey and a woman. He says he maintains his instrument by only eating meat.
"I wear an oxygen mask when I sleep. I only drink herbal tea, half honey, half herbal tea."
This is nonsense, of course, but his penchant for nonsense is behind much of his success.
"People aren't surprised by beatboxers anymore, it's not special. I'm just trying to innovate as much as possible. I'm doing things at the moment that I can't really describe ... but I've got this crazy, live looping set-up and lots of exciting stuff."
Lowdown
Who: Beardyman
What: Human beatboxer
Live: Bacardi B-Live with Mark de Clive-Lowe and Sharlene Hector, Union Fish Building, Quay St, 8pm, Saturday. Tickets $10
