By Christine Donnelly

Getting anyone to agree to come with me to a beatbox competition on Friday was hard, even when I framed it with the welcoming phrase, “Come on! Do it for the comedy!” Friends who normally only need to hear that there will be food and/or beer and/or young girls in attendance (you know who you are – Dylan), dropped out on the quick. It left me wondering if it’s harder to participate in a beatbox competition or sell tickets to this thing.

By 10pm on Friday I was in a cab with two dependables, hurtling toward Suba at College and Spadina. We got there early in answer to a text from a friend who was already inside: “it’s kinda empty, but they’ve started. It’s crazy!”

If I have a ‘scene’ this wasn’t it. Girls teetering on high, high heels, made taller still by the bumpits in their hair. Boys whose faces were lost inside the extra large hoods of extra large hoodies. And the low-ceilinged venue itself, which was a long hallway full of people on phones or fiddling with cameras, all recording the battles taking place on the makeshift stage.

The Sick.Sound.Syndrome (aka ‘S3’) is a five-member collective of vocal percussionists and the hosts of this beatbox throwdown called, “The Assault.” This was their first event in a series meant to set the stage for the Canadian beat box nationals coming up this year. Gary Manaquil, a member of S3 explained, “The goal of the competition is to promote the art form, to elevate it… Toronto is on par or ahead (of other cities), and we are trying to develop a community.”

In head-to-head battle style, competitors went up in twos, at first only getting 30 seconds to showcase their skills. Meanwhile, their competitors stood alongside them on stage, overtly feigning boredom, complete with yawns and eye rolls. Round two saw artists with names like Human Record and Jonny ‘Heat’ Hitatchi go head-to-head in 60-second rounds. This time the exchange was more personal, often starting with, “I just saw your girl outside…”

By round two it was 11:15 and Suba was packed. The crowd was reacting to everything from howls of laughter when they were witnessing total failure to a crescendo of cheers when one guy managed to simulate a driving drum beat, a horn section and strings (?!), while SINGING.

My friend Erin, a speech pathologist, stood shaking her head in the sea of cool kids. “I have NO IDEA how he is doing that,” she said. “None.”

Find out about upcoming S3 shows here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2399724208

http://www.youtube.com/user/sicksoundsyndrome#p/a/u/1/gh880G3uaq0