Local News

Beatbox Championship set for Saturday

Hosted by Wailuku-born Pono Akiona an American Beatbox Champion

America has a new beatboxing champion, and he is from Maui. Wailuku-born Pono Akiona became the 2022 American Beatbox Champion in the solo category at the annual national competition held in Atlantic City in September.

"It felt pretty amazing just being on stage," he recalled about his win. "It was an amazing feeling. I can't really even put words to describe it."

The first beatboxer from Hawaii to place or win the championship, Akiona previously won first place in the 2V2 (two person vs. two person) Tag Team Battle in 2018 and 2019. "I'm really proud to represent Hawaii," he said.

Facing stiff competition to make it to 2022 champion, he explained: "The first stage was video submissions. Everybody submitted a video, and they narrowed it to the best 32. There were 200 submissions and then everybody that was selected from the 32 went to Atlantic City to compete live. Then they picked the top 16 to go to the battle portion, and I ended up winning the whole thing."

Akiona, who performs as Pono, has drawn major praise on YouTube for his amazing beatboxing skills. "This is some of the best beatboxing I have ever heard," noted one comment. Others included, "Pono did some combos I never knew existed;" "This man is not normal, the future of beatboxen'," and "One of the best beatboxer in the world."

Interviewed on New York radio station WNYC, two-time Beatbox Battle World Champion Kaila Mullady told Morning Edition host Michael Hill: "The coolest thing about beatboxing is that humans are literally inventing sounds that have never been done before. These newer beatboxers, they're doing things that I didn't even know was possible with the voice."

The art form of mimicking percussive sounds dates back centuries to India, where musicians would imitate the sound of tabla drums. Modern beatboxing began in New York City during the rise of hip-hop, as an accompaniment to singers and rappers, when drum machines were unavailable or unaffordable.

Now a global movement, Japanese Zen Buddhist monk Yogetsu Akasaka brought Buddhism into the modern age, blending chanting with beatboxing. His video "Heart Sutra Live Looping Remix," has more than five million YouTube views. Winner of season 9 of "India's Got Talent," Divyansh Kacholia has added his beat boxing talent to Rajasthani folk music.

Akiona displayed his talent at the annual St. John's Kula Festival in Keokea in September, performing with reggae artist Marty Dread. "He's a phenomenal talent," Dread enthused. The duo will team up again on New Year's Eve for a show at The Ritz-Carlton Maui, Kapalua.

"The art has come a long way," Akiona noted. "It's just rapidly evolving, and not everybody sees that. That's another thing I'm really trying to push, so other people can see like what really is beatboxing. It's not something that a lot of people even hear about or see."

In 2021, Akiona established the state-wide Hawaii Beatbox Championship as a way for other local beatboxers to showcase their skills, and on Saturday, he will host the 2022 Maui Beatbox Championship at the ProArts Playhouse in Kihei. The winner will receive $100. "I'm organizing the championship and I will do a couple of performances," he said.

A passion for beatboxing was seeded while he was a student at Baldwin High School. "It all started when I saw a YouTube video of another beatboxer. His name was oZealous. I thought, let me give it a try, and I started beatboxing in January 2016. Once I started going, I went down this rabbit hole. I watched tons and tons of videos and just practiced for hours a day, every day as much as I could. Everybody was just like annoyed and had enough of me, but I kept going and couldn't stop. I became really passionate about it over the years."

Currently apprenticing to be a barber, on Nov. 30 at 7:30 p.m., Akiona will be featured on PBS Hawaii's TV show "Home is Here." "They flew over in April and came to my house and recorded a segment," he said.

For the future, he would like to make Maui more prominent in the beatboxing world. "One of my biggest dreams is to really grow the scene here. When I first started, there was nothing. There were no events. There was no scene. There were a few beatboxers, but they were all doing their own thing. My vision was to bring everybody together and make this a community. My goal is to grow this community and get them to a higher skill level. A lot of them are really talented."

The 2022 Maui Beatbox Championship will be held at the ProArts Playhouse in Kihei at noon on Saturday. Tickets are $15. Visit https://proartsmaui.org/ shows-events.