Soul Inscribed is an American hip hop–fusion band and Beatbox crew from New York City.

Formation

Soul Inscribed was formed by Baba Israel, who was raised in NYC by parents who were core members of "

The Living Theater The Living Theatre is an American theatre company founded in 1947 and based in New York City. It is the oldest experimental theatre group in the United States. For most of its history it was led by its founders, actress Judith Malina and painter/po ...

". He was the co-founder of the Australian hip hop crew

Metabass'n'Breath Metabass'n'Breath are a hip hop band from Sydney. The group was formed by Elf Tranzporter, Morganics and Baba Israel after they met while busking. They recorded two albums and toured America twice. The group self-released their debut album, ''Se ...

. In 2000 he befriended and began working with future bandmate Yako 440, while on tour with

DJ Logic DJ Logic (born 1972 as Jason Kibler) is an American turntablist active primarily in nu-jazz/ acid jazz and with jam bands. Kibler was born and raised in The Bronx, NY. Because of an early interest in hip hop, Kibler started using the turntabl ...

. Baba and Yako then began to work on and release albums together which include, Force of Life, Beatbox Dub Poetics, and Highest Degree. They have also performed and worked together in theater productions and have toured with Boom bap meditations. Baba and Yako did music teaching at "The Door" community center in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

where they met 17-year-old

RnB Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly ...

Soul In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being". Etymology The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...

Singer-Songwriter and Beatboxer, Jonathan "Duv" Zaragoza. The three formed a strong bond and Baba and Yako, began featuring Duv on their albums before co-producing his debut solo album ("Urban Artistik"). Duv then began teaching beatboxing and song writing workshops and gigging at various well known New York venues such as "The Blue Note", "Highline Ballroom", "Bowery Poetry Club", amongst others. They later united to form Soul Inscribed. In 2009, Baba Israel moved to England to work as the Artistic Director and CEO of "Contact", one of the world's leading arts venues working with youth. When returning to NYC, he collaborated with "The Kung-Fu Masters" meeting Saxophonist Sean Nowell, who served as a session performer for the group before joining full-time. Over the course of 2015 the group continued to record and perform music together, as well as teaching master classes in music production, songwriting, improvisation, and beatboxing.

Career highlights

In 2016, the band was selected to perform and tour as part of the "American Music Abroad" program, sponsored by the United States State Dept. They toured Russia, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Mauritius, serving as cultural ambassadors. The group released their self-titled album on February 15. Baba and Yako created, wrote, and starred in ''The Spinning Wheel'', a show paying tribute to the life, art and cultural impacts of Baba's father, Steve Ben Israel, an actor, musician, poet, artist, and activist. In April, Baba and Yako were featured in Brooklyn Academy of Music's program, "Poetry 2016: Past is Present."

Band line-up

* Baba Israel:

Rapping Rapping (also rhyming, spitting, emceeing or MCing) is a musical form of vocal delivery that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular". It is performed or chanted, usually over a backing beat or musical accompaniment. The ...

Beatboxing Beatboxing (also beat boxing) is a form of vocal percussion primarily involving the art of mimicking drum machines (typically a TR-808), using one's mouth, lips, tongue, and voice.

Didgeridoo The didgeridoo (; also spelt didjeridu, among other variants) is a wind instrument, played with vibrating lips to produce a continuous drone while using a special breathing technique called circular breathing. The didgeridoo was developed by ...

* Yako 440: Multi-instrumentation,

Beatboxing Beatboxing (also beat boxing) is a form of vocal percussion primarily involving the art of mimicking drum machines (typically a TR-808), using one's mouth, lips, tongue, and voice.

* Duv: Vocals,

Beatboxing Beatboxing (also beat boxing) is a form of vocal percussion primarily involving the art of mimicking drum machines (typically a TR-808), using one's mouth, lips, tongue, and voice.

* Sean Nowell: Saxophone, Flute,

Beatboxing Beatboxing (also beat boxing) is a form of vocal percussion primarily involving the art of mimicking drum machines (typically a TR-808), using one's mouth, lips, tongue, and voice.

. * Grace Galu: Vocals * Doron Lev: Drums,

References

{{Authority control American hip hop groups