Miss Manhattan Hangs Out...with Ben Mirin

If you Google the phrase “wildlife DJ,” almost all of the hits on the first page will lead you to Ben Mirin. “That’s not real, girl,” my friend James says via text when I tell him about my latest subject. “Get receipts. That’s a line at a bar.”

But it is in fact a career Ben has developed himself, traveling to the far corners of the earth--India, Madagascar, Belize, Honduras, and countless other locales--to record animal sound he then mixes into music. The goal is to inspire conservation and expose audiences to nature that may not get to connect with it on a regular basis. He also beatboxes along with these recorded sounds and performs live. Ben is a National Geographic Explorer and educator as well. He hosted his own show on National Geographic Kids and Nat Geo WILD called “Wild Beats” and was the first artist-in-residence at the Bronx Zoo. He also just launched his own game with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology called “BeastBox” which allows you to create music with sounds from nature.

Today Ben is being interviewed by philosophy professor and jazz musician David Rothenberg for The Explorers Journal, the quarterly publication of The Explorers Club, a professional society dedicated to “the advancement of field research and the ideal that it is vital to preserve the instinct to explore.” Ben received the organization’s 2017 Scott Pearlman Award to go to Honduras and record sounds of local frog species this upcoming spring.

We walk into the depths of Prospect Park this sunny morning, the sting of cold air on our faces. Even in the middle of Brooklyn, there are escapist qualities in birdwatching for Ben, especially if you can isolate the birdsong from, shall we say, ambulance song or car horn song or what have you (“anthropogenic sound” if you want to feel like a scientist). Finding a spot nestled in an expanse of trees, Ben and David chat amongst the fallen leaves, felled trees, the ambient birdsong that Ben can identify without hesitation.

After an hour or so, it turns bitter cold, the sun disappearing and wind blowing. The three of us leave the park, David departing while Ben and I head into the Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Library to warm up. Ben gets us chamomile teas and soon we thaw.

We talk about 9-to-5 jobs, which neither of us have and frankly don’t know if we ever want or should have. It reminds him of something he tries to impart to the children he educates so they never have to feel like being unusual is a negative: “I’m wired differently and that’s okay.”

He says this and my chest aches. How is it possible that now, as I am sitting in the Brooklyn Public Library at 29, he's said to me something I have been waiting my entire life to hear and I didn’t even know it? And if it affects me this way, I can only imagine how a roomful of children might feel.

Follow Ben on Instagram, where he posts animal recordings he’s made in the field along with other snaps from his life.
Follow Ben on Twitter.
Become a fan of Ben on Facebook.
Play BeastBox here.
Subscribe to Ben’s YouTube Channel here.

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The American Human Beatbox Festival

"I can beatbox!" SW said. "Boots 'n' cats 'n' boots 'n' cats 'n'..." 

We laughed. We knew full well the people we'd see tonight were far better than the sound the phrase "boots 'n' cats" made when you said it really quickly. In fact, since we were attending the Annual American Human Beatbox Festival, we were anticipating our minds being blown. 

Opening Night Open Mic Beatboxers

A friend of mine, who goes by Benbox (and did a Tedx Talk called "Beatbox as a universal language"! Also, a fun story about Benbox: the night I met him, we went out with a group for Chinese food. While we were waiting for the food, I made some kind of clicking noise with my tongue and apologized to him. He said, "Please, you're talking to someone who makes funny mouth noises for a living!"), invited me to the festival. Curated by beat MC Kid Lucky (who himself has beatboxed for the likes of Panasonic, NBC and MTV), the festival is now in its fourth year and is held at the renowned experimental theatre La MaMa in the East Village. According to the theatre, the goal of the festival is to "bring together legendary and emerging beatboxers and [introduce] La MaMa’s audience to that artistry’s expanding global community." I'm not sure why, but people seem to forget beatboxing is an art form. The mouth is, after all, a musical instrument. 

Why yes, DJ Menyu, the evening was dope!

I had heard people beatbox before, obviously. But it was always sort of in the background. At the festival, however, it is of course at the forefront. SW and I attended the Opening Night Open Mic, where beatboxers from all across America (Rhode Island, California, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and the list goes on) performed for three to five minutes each. Microphones tucked close to their faces, some holding a finger tight to their noses, they produced entire scenes of robot takeovers, ping-pong matches, and video games all with their mouths. Clicks and pops and pows and bass drums and hi-hats and snares...it is frankly a little difficult to describe what I saw without using a succession of onomatopoetic words and musical instruments.

But for every single one of the performances, I sat there with my mouth open, utterly astonished at what these people where doing. I gripped my face for dear life, certain that it would melt off from all of the awesome. These performers were, as solitary people, an entire orchestra. And then you put them together? It would be an understatement to say our minds were successfully blown. 

Kaila Mullady, 2013 Beatrhyme Champion

There were so many diverse kinds of beatboxing, too--influences ranging from electronica to hip-hop to blues, and incorporating dance elements like popping and locking and even a harmonica. I didn't really know there were so many ways to beatbox, so many ideas to incorporate into sounds you made with your mouth. As with any art form, though, what makes it great is the way so many different people interpret what it can be.

I really loved seeing this warm, accepting community of beatboxers, too-- as Benbox said as SW and I were leaving, "this is it, this is the family." At one point, all of the beatboxers got on stage to help out a newbie, and two young beatboxers (about 15 years old! Someone in the audience commented, "That's the future right there!") got a rousing bout of applause. Because people want to further the art form, they want to help and encourage each other.

It's often said that the sign of a successful musical is when one leaves the theatre humming or singing a tune from the show. So when one leaves a show valiantly attempting to beatbox, the same must be true. SW and I left La Mama and walked down 4th Street, popping and clicking our mouths, wondering seriously but not too seriously if maybe we could beatbox too?

The American Human Beatbox Festival continues all this weekend at La MaMa, and you should definitely, DEFINITELY check it out. Click here for more information about different American Human Beatbox Festival events. 

The Opening Night Open Mic Beatboxers, conducted by Kid Lucky

(that's Benbox starting in the middle)