Shlomo’s New Rules takes us on an ‘adventure through time and music’, where the world renowned beatboxer recounts childhood memories and waxes lyrical about his life-long love affair with music, sounds, and performing. A casually dressed Shlomo, wearing a pink t-shirt, relaxed skinny jeans and co-ordinating Nike 360 trainers, bought his cool, calm and collected energy to the Quarry at St Luke’s main auditorium where he played to an enthralled crowd.
In a smoky haze, Shlomo comes alive – the beat-boxer is born. The musical magician makes an array of awe-inspiring sounds using his mouth and pumps up the bass with two handy microphones, one near his mouth and the other near his throat. A seasoned live act, with stints at Glastonbury under his belt – Shlomo beat-boxes, sings and live loops in the hour long show, during which he performs an impressive array of pulsing, pounding, popular songs including Beats International’s ‘Dub Be Good To Me’, a Blackstreet ‘No Diggity’ mashup, along with a few of his own tracks. The World Loopstation Champion controls the crowd with the ease of a puppeteer, and feeds off of the room’s energy as he live loops a song made from yelps, screams and noises; his hand hovers and swishes from side to side over his trusty looping machine filled with web like wires and buttons.
Shlomo left home aged 17 to study Astrophysics, but says ‘maths and marijuana don’t mix’. He fondly recalls funny stories about growing up and finding his feet in the world of music. At a garage rave he realised music was his religion; a whirlwind of fun times ensued including supporting Snoop Dogg, Jay Z and Missy Elliot on tour with hip hop act Foreign Beggars. Shlomo, a serial collaborater, has worked with names including the Mighty Boosh, Martha Wainwright and Jarvis Cocker but is still giddy with excitement as he recounts how he went from working at a call centre to making music with Bjork the next day.
