Al-Fatnujah

10 Kilobeatz

The skinny

Consisting of Jahdeck, Fat Matthew and Nubi01, Polish beatbox crew Al-Fatnujah have been wowing crowds with their intricately orchestrated beatbox vibes since 2004. 10 Kilobeatz represents the trio laying their live show down onto a CD, which is believed to be the first beatbox CD to hail from Poland. This is a multimedia CD, featuring some 13 tracks, two live videos and a bunch of photos.

Vibe and peoples

This self-financed, self-recorded, self promoted CD is coming straight from the underground - it doesn't get much fresher than this!

Most of the 13 tracks are covers, such as Reel 2 Real's "I Like To Move It" and Benny Benassi's "Satisfaction". Highlights include a funky cover of the Bee Gee's "Staying Alive" which is a great tune to play to beatboxers and non-beatboxers alike and guaranteed to put a smile upon the glummest of faces! The most outstanding track, however, is undoubtedly a cover of the Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" - the use of the deep human vocal harmonies for the basslines gives an impressively fat sound that it's hard to believe comes from a human voice!

Other tracks on offer include Blackstreet's "No Diggity", which is very crisp and wonderfully orchestrated, and Kanye West's "Golddigger".

The only duff track for non-Polish speakers is the one that has a woman speaking in Polish over a beat for 3:32 - I have no idea what that's about! Perhaps it's great if you can understand it - we'll give the lads the benefit of the doubt!

Sonic boom

This CD has an unmistakably underground vibe, but it tight and crisp. It was apparently recorded in just 9 hours! The dynamic range is pretty good, although as is often the case with beatbox a bit more bottom end would fatten things up a little, but generally the sound is tight.

The videos give a great impression of how exciting this crew must be to see live - you can really sense the crowd vibing off what the performers are doing. Unfortunately, however, both videos are slightly marred - one has the camera battery indicator and timer left on throughout, and the other has over-compressed sound that means that hand claps from the audience seem as loud as the fury that the beatboxers unleash! Nevertheless, it's a great taste of how strong Al-Fatnujah must be as a live act - get on tour so we can hear for ourselves, lads!

Who will be feeling this most?

This CD will appeal most to people who like to hear collaborations between beatboxers where each artist takes parts of the beat. This is how you do it guys - I've not heard a better example of how to craft songs on stage for multiple beatboxers!

This is a sick CD, and any beatboxer would do well to hunt down a copy!

Sources/references/links

http://www.beatbox.pl/