Since the beginning of this semester, I have been hearing about this new club that formed on campus called the Stony Brook Beatboxers. They describe themselves as ‘a group that aims to promote beatboxing as an art form by impressing others with our skills, constantly improving our skills as well as ourselves, and to inspire others.’
Beatboxing itself is seen as an artform that started in our very own backyards of the US. The objective of this unique club is that they want to bring this culture of music to the Stony Brook campus. I had the privilege to have an interview with the Stony Brook Beatboxers representative David Lu and asked him a few questions about the group.
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Bizz: How do you feel about bringing this type of music to Stony Brook University?
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David Lu: When I started this group, I noticed that there wasn’t much school pride on campus. When the weekend hits, the campus is a virtual desert.and the fact that a lot of people here are commuters, makes it hard for there to be a sense of any school pride to be seen.
Another problem that I see on campus is that I get a general sense that these groups on campus are not well known by many of the students. There are those who don’t know what ASA is about, or CSO, or even know that our school’s a cappella groups the High C’s, and SBU Vocalists even existed. The problem is with how groups try to promote themselves and with how the school’s administration is stifling them. It’s not that I don’t think that the groups themselves haven’t tried. They do promote but its falling on deaf ears because students don’t feel a connection to many groups on campus, they’re either too big where people end up feeling lost in them, or they just don’t feel a personal connection.
When I started this group, that’s what I wanted to change. I wanted this group to not be just another group on campus. I want people to be actively involved with us, that there are people who do care about them and their support. Even if just for a brief moment, if we can all come together as one, I think this was all worth it.
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Bizz: What strategies have you been using to get the Stony Brook Beatboxers out their like the flyers I’ve seen in Tabler Quad?
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David Lu: One method was to see where students spend most of their time on and where they may easily be reached and that’s Facebook. I started an account on Facebook called ‘Stony Brook Beatboxers’ and then just started adding my friends, and adding their friends and so on. However, when they accepted the request, I would take some time out to actually go to their wall and thank them personally. Though most of the wall posts followed along the same lines, I tried to look at their Facebook page, see what’s going on, and respond to it in the most personal way as possible. For example, one of the people who added us on Facebook had a recent status message about how they had lost a loved one. We made sure to address that as we know it’s something huge in their life, and that even though we don’t know them yet personally, we understand how they feel and we want to reach out to them. That’s part of what we do, we want to reach out to people and show them that we care, and if we show that we care, I think they will care.
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Bizz: I find that intriguing that you are making these lengths to show compassion for those who became fans on your Facebook page. How do you feel about the exposure clubs on campus in general?
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David Lu: The predicament with groups trying to promote themselves is not that they don’t try but the university impedes on them. For example, I was surprised that one of the groups on campus was not nearly getting enough attention as they should have. I talked to them and told them that they should perhaps do random impromptu performances. The group’s coordinator agreed with me and had that idea, but ultimately, the university regulations prohibit them from doing that. For some reason, it’s seen as a disturbance on campus. What kind of reasoning is that?! That’s the type of behavior that stifles school spirit.
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Bizz: What benefits from impromptu do you perceive?
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David Lu: With groups performing impromptu on campus, it makes clubs visible and that there is a community waiting to be tapped into. It shows that this campus is more than just book smarts, but also about creative talent as well. It shows that we really do have culture, and I think it’s a tragedy what the school has done to it.
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Bizz: How does your group exploit their talent and try to grab a hold onto the public eye of campus?
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David Lu: My angle was to go and take advantage of many chances as we could to get our name out there. I originally had planned only to perform for Tabler Caf’eacute;’s Open Mic Night. So when there was a homecoming festival during campus life, and I saw an empty stage and just tons of people around, I immediately got myself and my friends together to perform. My friend Amit and Max killed the performance. We got an overwhelming positive response with people recording us as we did our thing.
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I also did Open Mic Night at Tabler Caf’eacute; and that too was a huge success. The next thing I knew everyone on campus was talking about it. It’s all about going to the people and having them realize you’re there. We try to take advantage of every chance we get.
The publicity and the dedication that the Stony Brook Beatboxers have is truly outstanding and positive energy that I believe Stony Brook University needs. The group, which came out to the public realm starting its Facebook page on September 30,2009 then started a fan page simply titled the Stony Brook Beatboxers, is currently looking for more members who have some skill or who aspire to develop skills in beatboxing. The ways you can reach this unique group are via our email: [email protected], follow them on Twitter by going to twitter.com/sbbeatboxers, or access them on their website www.sites.google.com/site/sbubeatboxers. The other way to see the Stony Brook Beatboxers is to attend their events, bring a friend, and get ready to be entertained. Keep a healthy eye out for this group and show them some support.
Any clubs/groups who are dedicated and would like to be mentioned in the Statesman contact us through sbstatesman.com and tell them you would like to be ‘The Buzz with the Bizz.’
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