One of the great things about YouTube is you can stumble across incredible performances from around the world that you’d never see otherwise. Meet Jake and Jamar Canecia, twins from the Philippines whose beatboxing is taking the internet by storm.
The boys can make quite amazing sounds using just their hands and mouth and what’s even more impressive is that they started doing it at just five years old. In 2018 their school teacher posted a video of one of their beatboxing performances to YouTube. It spread all over the internet like wildfire and was the first time this talented duo went viral. Make sure you stay to the end, these boys have some serious talent!
In the video, they are performing the Martin Garrix hit Animals. The boys start off joking and laughing like the young boys that they are. However, when they start making the beatboxing sounds, it’s impossible for your jaw not to drop. Your ears must be lying to you; after all, nobody could make these sounds with just their bodies, right?
A minute or so into the video, the brothers decide to up the tempo. One of them pushes his hand against his throat while cupping his mouth and makes amazing robot-like sounds. Again, it seems impossible that anyone could make this sound with no instrument or machine involved, but they seem to do it effortlessly.
Since that video, the twins’ fame has continued to spread. The Animals video has been uploaded to many YouTube channels, and the Viral Hog channel alone already has 32 million views and 1.1 million likes. That’s pretty outstanding for two boys who aren’t even ten yet.
That’s not where our story ends, though. Since the Animal video, the brothers have continued to make more videos for YouTube. Unbelievably their talent was spotted by megastar actor and rapper Will Smith. He posted one of their videos onto his Instagram channel with the caption: “Before the internet people would just be good at something like this and nobody would know—Tragedy! Shoutout Jomar & Jake…this is spectacular!”
Since then, other celebrities like Martin Garrix himself and Questlove have reposted the twins’ performances. YouTube beatbox channel Beatbox Allstars has posted a video by the twins. This video is great because the caption gives us more information about the boys:
“They discover this very unique style of creating sound when they were just 5 years old, JJ’s uncle said. During the day, these two love to hang and play at the jungle, and when the night comes, going back to their home without enough light on their way, they usually use their hands to clap to make sound so that their uncle would hear them both coming or ask for help in going home.”
If you’ve never seen a truly exceptional beatbox performance before, check out the twins’ YouTube channel. The talent of these young boys will blow your mind.