Jason Gardner
Actor/beatboxer Chesney Snow studied theater at Edgewood College.
Chesney Snow has found his voice.
A beatboxer (vocal percussionist) and actor who spent his teenage years in Platteville and attended Edgewood College in the late ’90s, Snow is returning to Madison on a tour with Vocalosity, which plays at the Overture Center on Jan. 28-29. Vocalosity was created by Deke Sharon, the impresario behind Pitch Perfect and The Sing-Off. It’s a high-energy act featuring 12 vocalists performing arrangements of current hits using only their voices. “A cappella,” Snow says, “creates a bond between people. The first drum is the heartbeat, and we all have one. We all have the capacity to be music.”
Snow moved to Wisconsin from Chicago as a high school freshman. His mother was escaping an abusive boyfriend and Snow recalls they threw all their belongings in their car and just left. They moved into a women’s shelter outside of Platteville.
Growing up in southwest Wisconsin as a young African American teenager wasn’t easy. “When we first moved, I was against it, because back in those days, there weren’t many black kids,” says Snow. He describes the experience as “culture shock,” but says the family was eventually accepted. “Going through it really shaped and informed the toughness of my skin. It was good for me and good for the community.”
After graduating, Snow studied theater at Edgewood College, which he calls “refreshing and beautiful.” He lived in dorms overlooking Lake Wingra and learned valuable artistic and technical skills that helped him gain employment once he made the leap to New York City; in addition to performing, he knew how to hang lights and work the sound board.
But once he was in the competitive struggle for roles, the young actor became disillusioned. “I was at an audition for a McDonald’s [commercial], and I remember the director asked me, ‘Can you make the McChicken sexy?’” says Snow. “I had an epiphany. Is this really what I want to do with my life in this art?” Snow took a break from auditioning, choosing to focus instead on beatboxing, percussion made with the voice, lips and mouth, to create sounds similar to a drum machine, turntable or even specific natural sounds like bird calls. It felt like a purer art form, with less separation between him and the audience.
Snow says he had always been inspired by hip-hop culture and had a natural inclination to beatbox; it wasn’t something he so much learned as practiced, sometimes five hours a day in his apartment, the way other musicians study their instruments — recording himself, listening back and detailing various sounds. “If you look at children, they’re always making sounds,” he says. “Their voice is a conduit to their imagination. Beatboxing is innate.”
In 2010, the idea of working with legendary musician Herbie Hancock drew Snow back into the theater: He auditioned and won a part in a Hancock-produced musical called iChoose, The musical toured high schools in five different states and three countries, using rap, dance and dialogue to help students in high-conflict zones learn nonviolent coping skills. The show was transformative, says Snow: “We would get messages from school administrators saying we deescalated conflicts that same day.”
Later, Snow was cast as Boxman — the beatbox role — in an a cappella musical featuring characters on the New York City subway called In Transit, written in part by Frozen composer Kristen Anderson-Lopez. The ensemble won the 2011 Drama Desk award, and the production team is reworking the show for a Broadway run.
Outside the proscenium, Snow has continued to pursue his own path. He founded the World Beatbox Association, and served as executive producer for a film about the 2010 American Beatbox Championship titled American Beat Boxer, which is now a part of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He also works with an organization called BEAT that teaches beatboxing at the Lavelle School for the Blind in New York City, using the form not just to make music, but also to help children with multiple disabilities learn speech.
Snow says the goal of his work is to get all people to feel empowered to use their voices. “So much of our work in the arts is about deprogramming the don’ts and shouldn’ts people learn at a young age. [Vocalosity] is more than just a spectacle for the eyes.”
