Maybe you don’t think of the University as a place to foster the education of the next superstar of the rap world, but you might be wrong. Junior Andrew Boxman has been rapping for well over a decade, and hopes to be able to make a living off it one day.
The music industry major is known as Box, one half of the rap duo Joe & Box. He describes their music as “fresh and in your face, with many creative metaphors with interesting flows, [and] some knocking punchlines! We make it as true to us as possible.”
Box met Joe Urso back in fifth grade, and the childhood friends have been creating rhymes for the majority of their friendship.
Box said, “It was around fifth, sixth grade when, on occasion, I would write rhymes, no more than 16 bar verses about nonsense! In middle school, Joe and I would write songs together, comical rap songs about how much we loved food under the name ‘Fatty and the Funky Bunch.’”
Once they started high school, the two wanted to get serious about their art. “When freshman year in high school came around, we began to rap daily; writing verses and free-styling and it we really grew from there,” Box said.
The Freehold native mentioned that he was inspired by his older brother. “We really started taking rap seriously in high school with my older brother Justin and his best friend, Ashton Jackson. We would write songs and record using Mixcraft and a Rock Band microphone. When we [Joe & Box] were juniors, the four of us recorded under the group named ‘The Renegadez’.”
Justin Boxman passed away in 2011, but Box continues to be inspired by him. “My brother was also one of my biggest influences. He was talented as a rapper, I always admired his tenacity and emotion in his words at one moment and then the light hearted flows the next!”
The four boys only released a few songs together before the younger boys went on their own. The two released three mixtapes under the name GMTA: Great Minds Think Alike over two years. A couple years ago, the duo decided to change the name to the shorter and easier to remember name Joe & Box.
Box considers writing his rhymes to be a very personal process. Often the two start songs separately before coming together to collaborate. Box said, “We both have so much trust in our each other’s abilities. Sometimes we will write hooks together, come up with a melody we feel and add the right words to it.”
Joe & Box typically get their beats from producers they meet. They collaborated with Philly-based DJ Crockpot for their upcoming project. That doesn’t mean Boxman can’t play instruments, though. The rapper can play some piano, but he really feels that his ability to rap is his gift. “Personally, I feel that free-styling is the rappers instrument. It’s how we improvise and come up with the rhymes on spot right from our spirit. I like to think of free-styling as jazz poetry, and I also feel Joe and I are better at it than most because we appreciate it more.”
Unlike many hip-hop artists who simply have a DJ behind them, Box would like to incorporate live musicians into his shows one day. “We are hip-hop artists and obviously with it is a love for rap and hip-hop itself. But we would love to one day have a band to play behind us and mix in some different arrangement and sound into our music,” Box elaborated.
Jay Z has been known to incorporate live musicians in his act, so it’s expected that Box counts him as an influence, along with Lil Wayne, Outkast and Kid Cudi. He considers himself to be “influenced greatly by rappers like Jay-Z, whose talent and business sense influences me to work harder.”
Then it’s no surprise that Box’s goals are both musical and entrepreneurial. “I want to be a successful individual in the industry! Preferably I want to be rapping with Joe for a living, releasing material to fans and touring around the world! At the same time, I want to be an entrepreneur in the industry, helping other artists to develop their careers in the industry, helping business minded people to get jobs working in the industry behind the scenes in all the fun!”
Box is already getting in some behind the scenes action as co-founder and president of The Music Alliance. The club serves as a way for students to get a taste of what actually working in the music industry is like. Artists can play in showcases while students can also get behind the scenes experience in areas such as event planning and marketing.
Currently, The Music Alliance is having showcases every Friday on campus. This Friday, Natalie Zeller will be playing on the Rebeccas Stafford Student Center patio at 4 pm. Box is confident that the group will have many more events and projects this semester, especially as they work with the University’s record label, Blue Hawk Records. Joe & Box will have their showcase on Friday, November 11.
Follow @FollowTMA on twitter and like The Music Alliance on Facebook for more updates.
Joe & Box don’t currently have a release date for their next project, but you can hear their current songs at JoeandBox.com, facebook.com/joeandbox and soundcloud.com/joe-and-box. They also have music videos up at youtube.com/JoeandBoxTV.
PHOTO TAKEN from facebook.com/andrew.boxman
