Co-founders Ori Kaplan and Firewater's member Tamir Muskat both met in Brooklyn, New York, NY as teenagers. Both had grown up with music; Kaplan had been a klezmer clarinetist, while Muskat was a drummer in a punk rock band. They established their own unique sound by fusing the musical styles of Mediterranean and Balkan traditions with hip hop and dancehall beats. Balkan Beat Box’s goal was to take ancient and traditional musical traditions and fuse those with hip hop in order to create a new mix of musical styles out of the traditional world music context that would appeal to listeners in a club or a dancehall. As children, they had felt that traditional music was outdated and felt as though it did not adequately reflect their experiences of the growing world culture, so hoped to bring new relevance to these old traditional musical forms. They cite Boban Marković, Rachid Taha, Fanfare Ciocarlia, Manu Chao, and Charlie Parker amongst their musical influences. The group was also influenced by Jamaican dub. In December 2006, the acclaimed artist from Tel Aviv Tomer Yosef became frontman for the group. Balkan Beat Box’s self-titled first album and their 2007 follow-up album Nu Med both received global acclaim. While their first album focused more on Mediterranean sounds, their second album included Arabic and Spanish influences. The song "Bulgarian Chicks" from their first album became popular in clubs and dancehalls in 2008. The group released Blue Eyed Black Boy in 2010 and Give in 2012. Regarded as the "godfathers of global bass" by MTV Iggy, the band continued to expand their sound incorporating electronic dance music, reggae, cumbia, and brass bands into their tracks. Blue Eyed Black Boy was recorded in Romania with the Jovica Ajderevic Orkestarbrass band, and at Vibromonk East in Tel Aviv. Key tracks are "Dancing with the Moon", "Move It", "Blue Eyed Black Boy", and "War Again" as harbinger of things to come. The album Give was influenced by the Arab Spring, Occupy movements, and the spirit of change around the world. Spin Magazine dubbed the band "a global peace-keeping mission you can dance to".
Samplings and adaptations
The band's popular song "Bulgarian Chicks" was sampled by Mac Miller in the Diplo-produced track "Goosebumpz" in Spring 2013. Later "Bulgarian Chicks" was also sampled in "Sis: Trompeta". The album Nu Med, already famous internationally became more popular when in August 2013 the song "Hermetico" taken from the album was sampled by Jason Derulo in his international hit "Talk Dirty" featuring 2 Chainz. In 2014, the Norwegian comedy duoYlvis sampled the song "Adir Adirim" from Balkan Beat Box's eponymous album for the track "Mr. Toot". This track debuted as part of the fourth season of their show I kveld med YLVIS.
Appearances in media
Their song featured in EA Sports' FIFAgame series twice such as "Ramallah-Tel Aviv" featuring Tomer Yosef and Saz from album Nu Made in FIFA 10 and "I Trusted You" from album Shout it Out in FIFA 17. "9/4 the Ladies" was featured in the 2008 film You Don't Mess with the Zohan. "Hermetico" and "Balcasio" were featured in a 2009 episode of the TV seriesBored to Death. "Marcha de la Vida" was featured in Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 They contributed an original song with production duo Stargate for the 2015 film Home, entitled "Slushious". The David Sisko remix of "Headhunter" was featured in the 2016 film Kindergarten Cop 2. They co-produced and co-wrote a song for The Lonely Island featured on the soundtrack, entitled "2 Banditos".
