The Enregisterment of Esh in Global Beatboxing Culture

Bibliographic Data

ID2286358
AuthorsJaspal Naveel Singh (0000-0002-2693-6718, The Open University), Cameron Martin Campbell (Beatbox Without Borders)
Year2022
Volume32
Issue2
Pages408-430
Publication date2022-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Linguistic Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1055-1360 • E-ISSN: 1548-1395
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/jola.12347
OpenAlexW3212477772
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited28

Esh is an emblematic word and sound in global beatboxing culture. It may have developed from the vocal mimicry of a sound of a snare drum or it may have derived from multicultural youth slang in France. What is clear is that esh is now widely recognized and used as a lexicalized sound to humorously index cultural identity alignments, for example taking a stance of affirmative evaluation, greeting and identifying other beatboxers. We show in this article how beatboxers perform, narrativize and mediatize the interactive functions and cultural indexicalities of esh. This enregisterment, we argue, is schizophonic, i.e. esh is indexically anchored in a mimetic shapeshifting between humans and machines

Digital Communication and Language · Digital Games and Media · Music History and Culture

Tools

Open DOI