Music Mavens by Ashley Walker & Maureen Charles

Author:Ashley Walker & Maureen Charles
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2022-08-04T09:48:26+00:00

Kate’s Faves

Favorite female singers: Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, Nina Simone, Sarah Vaughan (aka “Sassy”), and Cassandra Wilson

Favorite drummer: Terri Lyne Carrington

Dream project: Having Diana Krall or Cassandra Wilson sing one of her songs

Artists she’d like you to meet: Camille O’Sullivan, Lori Cullen, and the Good Lovelies

Part IV

Power to Improvise

Kaila Mullady:

Beatboxing Brilliance

Twenty-year-old Kaila Mullady arrived for her first-ever beatboxing competition feeling positive. Outside, groups of men warmed up in “ciphers”—small circles of people where beatboxers jam. Hearing them spit out rapid-fire sounds at impossible speeds, Kaila felt her confidence depart.

Was this a big mistake? What if she opened her mouth and nothing came out . . . again?

The best 16 beatboxers in the United States were competing, and she was the only female. If she didn’t do well, it would reflect poorly on other women and girls trying to break into the male-dominated world of beatboxing.

She wanted to run. Instead, Kaila Mullady took the stage.

White-hot lights beat down on her. The room was small, the speakers thunderous. She would hear every beat, every mistake she made, and so would the judges.

Kaila was afraid, but she had faced greater fears performing on street corners in New York City. She would face this fear too.

Still, as she approached her very first battle, Kaila prayed to be pitted against someone easy.

Her opponent took the stage. He was the reigning champion. So much for easy.

In beatbox battles, there are two rounds. The contenders alternate, each performing for 90 seconds per round. The champ beatboxed, Kaila beatboxed, champ again, Kaila again.

Then the judges deliberated. Time slowed down for Kaila.

Since entering the world of beatboxing, she had heard over and over again, “It’s impossible for girls to do low notes and it’s impossible for girls to go fast.”1 When a guy lost at beatboxing, no one said, “All guys are terrible beatboxers.” But when a girl lost, it was all-too-often interpreted as proof of female inferiority.

Well-meaning friends had prepared her to accept failure. From the outset, they’d reminded her that only one girl had ever gotten into the national championship competition, so she shouldn’t feel bad if she didn’t make it. Then, when Kaila had gotten in, they’d predicted she would never beat a guy head-to-head.

Kaila stood on the stage waiting what felt like 40 years for the judges to declare the winner.

Now, they were pointing at her.

Kaila Mullady had just become the first girl ever to beat a guy in a national competition—first in the United States and first globally.

This was incredible. Now surely everyone would stop saying that girls couldn’t beatbox.

Giddy at what she’d achieved, Kaila approached her opponent to give him a high five. Instead, he pulled her in really close and said, “You only won because you are a girl.”

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