Simon Shlomo Khan est né à Leeds en Angleterre. Son père est musicien et il reçoit sa première batterie à l’âge de 8 ans. Dix ans plus tard, il réalise qu’il peut transférer son énergie rythmique via ses cordes vocales.
Ses débuts
Sa première performance live date de 2002 lorsque le pionnier des beatboxers Killa Kela l’invite sur scène. Cette même année, il remporte lors d’une compétition de beatboxing le prix ‘King of the Jam’. Shlomo rejoint ensuite Dented Records le collectif de rappeurs Foreign Beggars avec qui il sort un premier album en 2003 et il enchaîne ensuite une tournée des festivals européens.
Depuis Shlomo a fait la première partie de Grandmaster Flash, Gza (Wu Tang Clan), Guru of Gangstarr et Public Enemy et fait partie de plusieurs collectifs de beatboxing.
Il a collaboré avec Damon Albarn, DJ Yoda, Lily Allen et Jarvis Cocker.
Son style
Le beatboxing, autrement dit, tous les sons possibles en utilisant uniquement sa bouche et ses cordes vocales, sans aucun autre effet et en une seule prise. Shlomo re-crée toutes sortes de sons tel que le hip hop, la trance, la drum n bass ou les beats garage.
Son travail avec Björk
Il a collaboré sur Oceania, titre de Medúlla présenté à la cérémonie d’ouverture des JO d’Athènes en août 2004.
À la radio anglaise Xfm, Björk le décrit alors comme le nouvel espoir de la scène hip hop.
Shlomo à propos de sa collaboration avec Björk
Beatboxing isn’t actually a style of music, it’s a technique for making music. The same as being a guitartist or a drummer. Bjork called me up when I was 21 and told me about this album she was making of just voices. What was amazing is she wasn’t interested in the appeal of it being all from the mouth, she really respected it as a form of music from the outset. She asked me to do a techno rumba, and I had to go find out how to do it. I was accessing a different part of my brain. I was replicating again. And I thought fuck this, I’m going to be a musician, not a party trick. I bought a loop pedal and started layering my voice. I want to be an artist, not a gimmick.
Guardian - Juin 2015
Shlomo à propos de Medúlla
Bjork called me up when I was 21 and told me about this album she was making of just voices. What was amazing is she wasn’t interested in the appeal of it being all from the mouth, she really respected it as a form of music from the outset. She asked me to do a techno rumba, and I had to go find out how to do it. I was accessing a different part of my brain. I was replicating again. And I thought fuck this, I’m going to be a musician, not a party trick. I bought a loop pedal and started layering my voice. I want to be an artist, not a gimmick.
The Guardian, juin 2015
She had been commissioned to write “Oceania” for the Athens Olympics and had already recorded it with piano. She was totally in awe of [Icelandic poet] Sjon, who had written the words, and she explained that it’s a song sung from the ocean to the rest of the world. It wasn’t going to go on the album, but when she was in London mixing Medúlla, she decided it was, which meant it had to be re-recorded, because the whole album was vocal. She wanted to get me to do something I wouldn’t normally do, which is what a true collaborator does. She said, “Can you do a techno rumba ? Or an industrial sounding samba ?” Her setup was so cool. She had three producers working with her, each with their own station. They would record in one place, then quickly send those files to another guy, who started chopping them up and playing with them. It was a creative factory of geniuses all working together for this greater goal.
Uncut - Avril 2017