The Beat Thang took two and a half years to create.
Day-to-day operations of their company, Beat Kangz Electronics, now take place in an unassuming office building in Green Hills. Ezrin partnered with the group and found them venture capital. Through his father, Motown guitarist Leroy Emmanuel, Aja met Bob Ezrin, a music and television producer whose credits include producing Pink Floyd’s The Wall. “We didn’t make a whole lot of money out of the deal,” Emmanuel says, “but what we did get is our brand name stamped on every (machine).”Īfter the Streetboxx’s success, the Beat Kangz decided to strike out on their own. The Beat Kangz struck a deal with musical equipment maker Zoom in 2003 and created the Streetboxx drum machine, which went on to become a best-seller for the company. I was like, ‘If that’s our biggest customer, why would we put 99 rock kits and one hip-hop kit (on the drum machine)? It should be the other way around.’” That was their biggest customer and (the company) didn’t know it. “I saw that the people that were buying these little drum machines and samplers were doing the same thing I was doing,” he says. As a former product specialist for Samson Audio, Emmanuel says he witnessed that demand firsthand. “We built what’s hopefully going to be the baddest beat machine ever,” says Beat Kangz president Aja “A.J.A.” Emmanuel.Įmmanuel and Beat Kangz partners Luke “Boom Bap” Jackson and Reavis “Rev” Mitchell believe that there’s serious demand for a hip-hop-dedicated instrument like the Beat Thang. When it goes on sale next month, it’ll give the group - and Nashville’s music scene - a chance to become a much bigger blip on hip-hop’s radar. It’s the Beat Thang, a hip-hop-tailored rhythm machine and synthesizer created by the Beat Kangz, a group of local musicians with a pedigree in musical gear and a passion for hip-hop culture. There’s a very different kind of instrument being crafted and tweaked in Music City - one without a string, piano key or drum to speak of.
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