With song, harmony, melody and rhythm being the main focus of Aquilina, it’s very difficult not to focus on anything else. The group started when Joseph Aquilina met double bass player Paul Baker outside the Royal College of music and asked Paul to have a jam. After many phone calls, failed attempts at meeting each other, they finally met, jammed and decided to work on Joseph’s material. Egyptian Violinist Samy Bishai answered an advert in the Loot newspaper and joined the group.  Joseph’s old friend from his anarchic teens, Chilean drummer Lenin Alegria, now plays drums after an invitation from the band to complete the quartet.

Joseph was born in South London hailing from Brixton. With his Maltese genealogy and its Semitic language, his interest in all things Arabic and other cultures was sparked from growing up in this multicultural town. Also listening to such artists like Davey Grayham, Jane’s Addiction, Soundgarden, Nick Drake and funk is reflected in Aquilina’s music, through the grooves, harmonies and melodies spanning the world local and afar. Even though the band has adopted Joseph’s surname, it is very much a band. The members are influenced by Jazz, Classical, Latin, Rock, Electronica, Pop, Folk and World music which all filters in to what is produced and performed.

Aquilina’s music has always been tricky to describe or put into a category, but one thing the remains certain, is that the majority of listeners with whatever fad they may be into: they like what they hear. Joseph’s voice producing powerful emotive tones fits perfectly with the skilfully played acoustic instruments, creating sonorous arrangements anchored by Lenin’s drumming. Comparisons have been made with Arcade Fire, Jeff Buckley, Nick Drake, Chris Cornell, Seal, Sting and the Dave Mathews Band with a North African and Eastern European flavour making their sound a little bit more open to “Worldy” influences as some may describe.
Aquilina has had several members join and leave the band including cellist/singer-songwriter Jeni Saint, Percussionist Martin Pyne and Drummer Nikolaj Bjerre (session drummer and formerly from the 90s trip-hop band Lamb). Other musicians that have worked and will feature on future recordings include: Zoe Rahman (2006 Mercury music nominee) on Piano, Oli Savil (Basement Jaxx) Percussion, Idris Rahman (The Soothsayers and producer of Mercury Nominees Basquiat Strings & Mercury Nominee Zoe Rahman) and Calum Cook (BSO, ECO, LPO) on Cello.

Hej hej!
Her har i et beat eller to. Hvis der er noget i kan lide så meget i gerne vil rappe til det så drop mig en besked så kan vi sikkert finde ud af noget.

And in english:

Hello
Here you have some of my beats. If there is one of them that you like so much that you want to rap to please drop me a message so we can find out something


The artist “Art of Beatbox” from Hamburg shows with his music that beatbox is more than hip-hop. The artist whose family has a big musical background developed at an early age a wide range of musical preferences which are reflected in his music today. With his versatile songs he wants to show the people that beatbox music can also be suitable for radio play. He himself describes his songs as a “reflection of his own specific musical habits”. This way you can find in addition to the typical hip-hop sounds also influences from jazz, latin, house, drum & bass all the way to classical music and metal. In contrast to other beatbox producers Art concentrates more on the drum part and utilizes his voice moreover as attendance.

In the year of 1998 Art had his first contact with beatboxing music. Even though it was “love at first sound” and he already wanted to learn the art of production of drum and percussion sounds with his mouth it was not easy. Finally in the summer of 1999 he met people who were able to help him. Hereby it proved that explaining the different techniques with words was nearly impossible. Therefore Art began to listen and to observe the beatboxers how they created the different kind of drum and percussion sounds with their mouth in order to also create similar sounds. Even though at the beginning everything sounded the same he tirelessly tried to create the most different kinds of sound with his mouth. With the time going past slowly some sounds were starting to sound different. After this he started to copy sounds from other beatboxers. Time after time he utilized the learned beatbox techniques to compose his own songs. The first public performance occurred in the middle of the year 2000 in Berlin. Since then “Art of Beatbox” has shown his talent at countless performances for example at live-show of “Top 815” from “Radio Hamburg” in the year of 2004 or as support for artists like “Fatman Scoop”, “Grand Agent”, “Declaime” and “Group Home”.

Art was also present on some sound recording media, he committed himself to many beatbox events like “The German Beatbox Battle” as a member of the judges’ panel and arranges regularly workshops for beatboxing. With his dedication to beatboxing he wants to make it more public and to commit himself to the perception of this music style.

I like music, and so do you, lets get together and doobiedoobie doo

Followers of Prask Sutton