Breath Control: The History of the Human Beat Box (film)

Breath Control: The History of the Human Beat Box (2002) is a pivotal documentary directed by filmmaker Joey Garfield. With its length of 74 minutes it is the first feature documentary that entirely deals with the subject of beatboxing.

With his film Garfield preserved one of the most valuable video clips for beatbox history, which he had retrieved from an old, private VHS tape. It is an excerpt of the first appearance of The Fat Boys in The Morning Show hosted by Regis Philbin and Cyndy Garvey in 1984. It was aired on ABC 7 / Channel 7, which is part of (WABC-TV), a television network for the city and state of New York.

When asked by Philbin, "You are the beatbox. When did you discover that you have this certain ability?" Darren Robinson answered, "Seven years ago" and gave a short beatbox demonstration. Just after this excerpt Darren's older brother Curtis states, "when I first started hearing him play the beatbox he was maybe about 10 years old".

The two references to the year 1977 marking the starting point for the development of his beatbox skills are in accordance with his brother's statement from 2009 in the documentary "Beatboxing - The Fifth Element of Hip Hop", in which Curtis Robinson also says that he saw his brother Darren beatboxing for the first time after the Blackout of 1977.

A timecoded copy of Breath Control is preserved in digital form and accessible at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, New York City.