Transcriber: Lily Xu Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
(Ethereal electronic music)
(Shaker)
(Singing)
(Music ends)
Gracias.
(Applause)
Thank you!
Bueno.
Break the box!
This is kind of what I'm going to be talking about today.
And I want to explain to you guys a little bit what I mean by break the box.
So I grew up in a house where my parents
gave us a lot of freedom, always encouraged us to do what we love to do,
what we are very passionate about.
So I never really had any pressure on me to go the conventional ways of life,
which I'm very happy about, so it's kind of like I'm still a child,
playing music, playing the box
like a little monkey here on the stage for you guys.
That's a joke, you're supposed to laugh now.
(Laughter)
So anyways, long story short, I grew up in South Africa
and I moved to London when I was 18, and I wanted to study -
I'm going to take this fur coat off;
it's not a fur coat, please do not kill me.
But I moved to London when I was 18,
and I really wanted to study music in a very prominent jazz school.
There was just one problem:
I had no money to go and study at this school,
and on top of that, I had to also make money to kind of support myself
and help my parents - they've also just immigrated to London.
So I had to start playing music on the streets, busking.
I couldn't get a job at this stage
because I was supposed to be a dependent on my parents,
so I wasn't legally allowed to do normal, regular work and jobs.
And actually, I'm really happy to say I've never done -
I've never worked for anyone in my life.
I mean I obviously get hired out to do work,
but I've always been my own boss, and that's something I'm very glad about,
and it comes from the fact
that I've always applied the principle of 'breaking the box' in my life,
and I believe that is the key to set free
what you are meant to do and what you love to do,
and that's when you're actually going to change the world
and change your own life,
and inspire other people to do the same thing
and do the things that they're supposed to do.
Anyway, so I started busking on the street.
This was a little bit of a box for me to break,
coming from South Africa playing on the street -
you have to just set up in the middle of nowhere, very scary.
I started with a saxophone, then I met a guitarist, and we did a duet.
I was singing; he was playing the guitar.
And about a year later, every day singing on the streets of London,
learning and so on and so forth, I got a lot of pain on the vocal cords,
so I had to do something about this.
And this was when I was introduced to the box, the cajón,
which is what I'm playing here today for you guys,
which is also one of the big reasons why I am on this stage
and why I'm doing what I love to do.
The guitarist I was playing with was also very much into flamenco and Latin music,
and I had lots of exposure to that at that stage, which was really great.
I never had that opportunity in South Africa.
And he told me about this box, a box like a drum kit in a box.
At first, I laughed at him and I thought he was joking, but he was serious.
So this was about when I was 19, about 10 years ago
that I got introduced to the cajón.
So he bought me a cajón from Spain,
and I got thrown into the deep end with this box.
I had to just start playing on the streets
on an instrument that I never heard of before in my life.
And at that stage, nobody was playing the cajón in London; it was very new.
It was still mainly used in the flamenco music.
And I had no teacher either in London.
So I kind of just had to figure it out myself.
So again, another box, something very uncomfortable that I had to kind of break.
But usually, it's when you're in a really uncomfortable situation
that you end up finding the solution for something
which is actually something that breaks open something greater
had you not been in that uncomfortable position,
if you guys know what I mean.
I'm sure you all are very, very familiar with this concept.
So basically, a few years later I added up a few videos on YouTube
in the hopes of helping somebody else who found themselves in the same situation
where they could learn some lessons from me.
I didn't know much about the online world. YouTube was very new.
So it was my surprise that people really reacted well.
I got a lot of followers; it's still growing,
up to the fact that today I see over 70,000 subscribers on my channel,
which is really great.
I have the biggest cajón YouTube channel - Yay! - that's really nice.
And it's still growing.
And I'm going to bring out a DVD, 'Modern Method for the Cajón',
hopefully introduce this to schools and education systems
that would like to have a formalized method for the cajón in our Western world.
Because there is a lot in the places where it came from
which is what we're going to talk about in a bit,
but there's not so much in the Western world.
So as you can see, throughout my life I've always kind of found a way
to do something different than other people,
and it's brought me unto a point where I'm doing exactly what I want to do.
In fact, if I was a kid and I had to look at myself today,
I would be quite happy.
I'm not bragging about myself, but just happy with where I am
because I'm able to play my music and do what I love to do,
and share with people something exciting and interesting in a very weird way,
which I never thought would actually happen.
Anyway, a few years went by,
last year the world saw the first hybrid cajón launched,
and I got the great honour, I got an email from them,
they asked me to be the international artist for this product,
which was really great because this is the new movement,
where they've added in electronic sounds into the cajón
and taken it even further.
And then also last year there was this viral video that happened,
which was also quite an out-of-the-box moment,
and it's funny how one moment where you let yourself go,
and you bring out the passion that you're so happy about
ends up resulting in you getting 70 million views in five days.
That's pretty crazy.
So, yeah, that's basically where we're at now, and now I've got TEDx.
I'm on the TEDx stage, which is also another box.
So as I'm talking to you about breaking a box, I am breaking a box.
And four years ago I watched my first TEDx video and I thought, I'm going to do that.
One day I'm going to be on a TEDx stage, so today is the day, so -
(Applause)
Gratzie! Thank you!
Alright, but I want to explain to you guys -
not too long, not too long, we're not on the end yet, okay? -
I want to explain to you guys
a little bit of the concept of breaking the box
by just using an actual box to explain this to you.
Now, the cajón itself, I don't know how many of you know about it,
but it's still growing, it's very new, but we see a world where 80% -
around 80% of the percussive sales are cajóns.
Every store you go into has cajóns in the store -
I mean not everyone but generally.
Thousands of people are starting to play music for the first time
or getting back to music because of the cajón,
because of its simplicity,
because it's something that's free and easy to play,
and we have, of course, millions of pounds in companies,
and people making a lot of money from this as well,
so it creates a lot of jobs, creates a big market for people.
And I want to take you back to where it actually all started
and just to show you how one person who thinks outside of the box,
or just sees more than just a mere box, could actually turn things upside down
that someone like me can be on the stage right here today because of that.
So I'm going to take you guys right back to where it started.
The cajón was born in Peru, in South America.
So a lot of people don't know this, but it was born in Peru,
and the way it was born was really beautiful;
it was also a bit of a thing.
Basically, when the Spanish colonised Peru,
they kind of prohibited the drums of the African slaves in Peru
as a way to break their spirits, to oppress them.
Again, put them in a box,
and so these guys were [saying]
'Oh, all our drums are gone. We can't express our soul.'
I mean, you come from Africa in those stages, all you had was your music.
And so, to make a long story short:
these guys ended up playing on mere boxes that they used,
that were working on to pack fish and fruits and vegetables into the boxes.
So this is how the cajón was born,
just out of kind of standing up against somebody who wants to oppress you
and put you in a box.
I'm going to show you guys the Peruvian cajón
because it's slightly different to the one I'm playing right now.
So this the Peruvian cajón. I mean it's a little bit small.
I had limited baggage yesterday to bring over on the flight.
But they're reasonably larger; they're about that size,
but this is a smaller one,
but it will give you a good idea of what it sounds like.
And it's just a box, okay?
It's a hollow box with a little hole in the back.
Really cool, really easy.
You can imagine there was a bunch of fishies in here,
and after your long day of working, this is what came out:
(Playing the cajón)
(Singing)
And that's how it was born, basically just from that.
And then the cajón had its next journey -
which is the cajón I was sitting on -
it made its way to Spain, to the flamenco music.
There was a great guitarist called Paco de Lucia Legos -
some people would argue about that - who went to do a concert in Peru,
and somebody gave him a Peruvian cajón,
because a few years after this it became the national pride of Peru.
So if you go to Peru today, they are very proud of their Peruvian cajón.
It's part of the whole society.
There's a huge international cajón festival.
I was there last year, which was amazing, to do some workshops.
And it's just beautiful to see 5,000 people get together outside,
each one with a cajón, and everyone playing together.
And I think it also brings us back
to where we're supposed to share music with a community,
and it's not just about the soloist on the stage,
which is something that we've started to accept
what music is about in our Western world.
But we forget that music is about community.
Each drum plays its part in the whole of the piece of music,
and I believe that everyone is supposed to do music.
It's an international language -
we have it inside; we want to bring to out.
And we used to do that, but now we sit at home and watch TV
instead of sitting around a fire making music and doing beats together.
So the cajón is bringing a lot of that back into the world.
Alright, going back to the flamenco cajón.
Here we go, so -
[Inaudible] changing is a bit strange [Inaudible].
So the cajón was taken to Spain by this flamenco guitarist.
They added strings to the front board,
so there's two guitar strings on this side,
two guitar strings on this side against the wood
to kind of make it more suitable for the flamenco music, and this was born:
(Playing the cajón)
(Singing)
(Claps)
(Applause)
So, thank you very much for that.
Before the cajón was added into the flamenco music,
the actual rhythm was claps and the palmas of the feet.
So, this was really automatically accepted into flamenco music.
And then from there the cajón ventured from Europe
because it was in Europe, more accessible,
and because it sounded a lot like a drum kit -
bass drum, snare drum,
we started seeing this:
(Playing the cajón)
(Singing) Lyrics: Yo, yeah,
because my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard
You're damn right, girl, it's better than yours
What you gonna do? Whoa, yeah!
Because I'm happy
I'm feeling glad
I got sunshine in a bag
I'm useless, but not for long
The future, it's coming on, yeah
Or: Pump up the jam
Pump it up
While your feet is stomping
And the jam is pumping
Look ahead, the crowd is jumping (Music ends)
So you can see how a lot of these things are like.
It's really the balance at a certain point.
(Applause) Thank you very much!
Alright.
(Applause)
Okay! So I'm going to finish with this really, really quickly.
There's been added on things.
Obviously, I told you guys about the electronics
that was added onto the cajón as well,
which now means I'm able to do other things on the cajón
that I couldn't just do before.
(Playing the cajón)
(Singing)
So I'm playing some darbuka on this, or you can go really heavy and do this:
(Playing the cajón)
(Singing)
Alright, so basically to round up my whole speech:
Break the box in your own life, you'll see some amazing things happen,
not just in your own life but for other people around you,
and you could make a huge, huge difference in your life for everyone else.
So, thank you very much for watching my show.
(Applause)
Thank you to TEDx. Thank you guys.
(Playing the cajón)
(Applause)