Breath Control is a documentary about making music with nothing but the human voice. The human beat box is one of the key elements in the development of Hip Hop culture, alongside Dj-ing, Graffiti, Breakdancing, and MC-ing. Unfortunately, its contribution has been largely overlooked, as has the fun, expressive, human, and spontaneous dimension of Hip Hop that it represents. As the first documentary of its kind, Breath Control: The History of the Human Beat Box uses interviews, live performances, archival footage, and animation to bring to light this important and neglected ingredient of Hip Hop's identity.
With the help of Beat Box pioneers DOUG E. FRESH, BIZ MARKIE, and THE FAT BOYS, Breath Control traces this art form from it's basic beat beginnings in the Eighties to it's present day multi-layered, polyrhythmatic figurehead's RAHZEL and SCRATCH of the Hip Hop group THE ROOTS. But Breath Control isn't limited to Hip Hop. Musician ZAP MAMA posits that human beat boxing is an artform practiced all over the world and has been refined by many different cultures. Breath Control is a half historical, half tutorial look at humans as actual instruments.