Adam Matta
Adam Matta is a human beatboxer and vocal performance artist from New York City who joined the Carolina Chocolate Drops in February 2011. He beatboxes, sings and plays tambourine on the band’s 2012 Nonesuch album Leaving Eden, and co-wrote its song “Country Girl.”
Matta began at open-mic nights in downtown New York and built a career that took in solo shows, in which he layers his voice live with a loop pedal, and collaborations with bands and theater companies. Before joining the Drops he had performed with Bobby McFerrin at Carnegie Hall and in Moscow, headlined the 2009 UK Human Beatbox Convention, and been heard on the soundtrack album The L Word, Season II: Sessions and in the documentary Planet B-Boy. He added beatbox and vocal percussion to records by the New York band Luminescent Orchestrii (Neptune’s Daughter, 2008) and by the Wiyos (Broken Land Bell, 2009; Twist, 2011).
He met the Carolina Chocolate Drops through the guitarist Sxip Shirey of Luminescent Orchestrii. The Drops and the Lumiis recorded a four-song EP, Carolina Chocolate Drops / Luminescent Orchestrii (Nonesuch, released January 25, 2011), with Matta beatboxing on all four tracks, rapping on Sam Morgan’s “Short Dress Gal” and taking the lead beatbox part on the Drops’ version of Blu Cantrell’s “Hit ’Em Up Style.” When founding member Justin Robinson left, Nonesuch announced in February 2011 that Matta and the multi-instrumentalist Hubby Jenkins were joining Rhiannon Giddens and Dom Flemons in the band.
Leaving Eden, produced by Buddy Miller and recorded at Miller’s home in Nashville, was released on February 28, 2012. Matta beatboxes on “Ruby, Are You Mad at Your Man?,” “Country Girl” and “Po’ Black Sheep,” plays tambourine on “Run Mountain,” sings on “Read ’Em John” and the vocal bass on “No Man’s Mama,” and shares arranging credit on four tracks. “Country Girl” is credited to Giddens, Lalenja Harrington and Matta. That year he also played on the Drops’ “Political World” for the Bob Dylan tribute Chimes of Freedom and on “Pretty Little Girl” with the Chieftains on Voice of Ages. He later beatboxed on Rhiannon Giddens’s solo records, on “Black Is the Color” from Tomorrow Is My Turn and on the EP Factory Girl, both from 2015.
