By Duane A. Gallop

What do you call a man who can make percussion instruments appear out of thin air? What do you call a man about to single-handedly usher in a cultural revolution? What do you call a man who played with the New York Symphony and received a standing ovation – using only his body as an instrument?

Well that’s easy. You call him by his name -- Kenny Muhammad. And then you call him what he is – the Human Orchestra.

“I didn’t give myself the name,” Kenny recalls. “It’s a name that I got from the fans. It was just that every show I did, they all said, “Oh man you sound like a human orchestra.’ ”

Kenny’s performances are demonstrations of vocal mastery. He calls them “beat boxes,” after the Hip Hop traditions of Doug E. Fresh and the Fat Boys, but they never did things like this man does. Kenny, who once beat boxed Pavarotti, can make you believe that there is a drum set and an organ playing when it’s just him, his mouth and his imagination.

“I do human beat box and vocal percussion,” he says. “I meet a lot of engineers who say to me, ‘Yo man you do things that my beat machines can not do.’ They’ll tell me, ‘You’re doing 150 beats per minute, you’re looping your own bars, you’re coming back on the one, you’re doing 6/8ths, you’re like a human drum – you’re a human orchestra!’ ”

Kenny says receives similar praise often. People tell him that he can do anything his imagination takes him. Although he enjoys being a solo artist, he enjoys playing with bands. The human body is the first chamber orchestra in the universe, Kenny says. And that’s what he represents. He plays alongside one or two instruments at his shows. He’ll play with a band. He’ll play with an 80-piece orchestra too.

“I put together a piece that’s on my Web site (www.humanorchestra.com) where I’m with the New York Symphony orchestra. I have an 80-piece orchestra backing me, right behind me and I’m in the front. I’m right in the front of the conductor, center stage. And I’m wearing this tuxedo and I’m beat boxing Pavarotti.”

The idea for playing with an orchestra came to him ten years ago in a round about way that often happens when greatness is inspired. It all began with a violin that Louis Farrakhan played in the Windy City. Kenny’s life was never the same.

“Minister Farrakhan had a birthday celebration in Chicago and I went and I was blown away because he’s a violin virtuoso!”

Louis Farrakhan had played with an orchestra and that’s when Kenny thought to himself that he would like to bring people together from all walks of life in one place. By using the classical orchestra and mixing in the different urban genres, Kenny knew that at the least he had a new and radical idea.

“So I came up with this idea and I gave it to a person who knew the conductor, David Heaton, of the New York Symphony Orchestra. And she set up the meeting and I sat down and met with him and I told him my idea and the motive about my idea to bring people together from all walks of life of music and cause a cultural revolution to show that music is one and we’re one.”

The next thing Kenny knew, he was standing in front of thousands of people. He was about to perform a piece David Heaton wrote for him called, “Kenny’s Joy” because Kenny had so much fun with the orchestra. David wrote the piece out, played it on piano, put it on tape and passed it off to Kenny to memorize. And then they had to have a flawless performance all on the strength of one measly rehearsal.

“I had to write the beats to it,” Kenny says. “I was listening to it and I was like, ‘Oh my God what am I going to do?’ because there was so many changes on it and I only had a couple of days.”

But he kept listening to it, putting in Hip Hop some places, house music in other places. Eventually, he was done with the beats and when he was done with the performance he received a standing ovation. Kenny Muhammad had arrived.

His shows sometimes include electric harps and electric guitars, classical music, Hip Hop and Led Zeppelin. He calls himself a “known unknown” because although he has had this gift for 17 years, he has only been performing professionally for five years.

“It was (at first just) like a habit,” he says. “And I really didn’t care nothing about it. But then when I heard Doug E. Fresh and the Fat Boys, they confirmed what I was already doing. So I knew I was on the right path.”

That path continues as he constantly challenges himself. He recently performed at the Blue Note with Take 6. He says it was Take 6 plus one and it was hard work playing jazz tunes. That dedication to his musical craft ensures variety in his first album entitled, “Kenny Muhammad – The Human Orchestra” with a subtitle, “Put your music where your mouth is.”

“I’m just trying to glorify God and usher in a cultural revolution.”

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