Zonimong Imchen poses with the YouTube’s ‘Silver Play Button’ for 100K subscribers
Vishü Rita Krocha
When Zonimong Imchen first started beatboxing, people especially here in Nagaland didn’t get it. He vividly remembers how they would ask, “why are you making chicken sounds?” But such ‘bad comments’ didn’t really affect him even as he puts across “I would just laugh it off, because as a kid, I think I really got involved with the whole idea of how criticisms work, so I was able to deal with it, and despite what people say, I was going to do it regardless.”
Few years on, he has been awarded the YouTube Silver Play Button for 1,00,000 (100K) subscribers, a rare feat and a milestone that every YouTuber aspires for. He is possibly the only Naga Individual to have achieved this feat so far. His video titled “1 Naga 20 Sounds”, which he uploaded sometime in the middle of last year currently, has 7.1 million views and counting. Everything, he says, took off from this video, which eventually garnered 100K subscribers and currently has 115K subscribers.
A Bachelor of Arts student at St Xavier’s College, Kolkata, Zonimong hails from Mangmetong village under Mokokchung district and grew up both in Kohima and Dimapur.
Talking about his years of growing up, he recollects a ‘different childhood.’ “My childhood was quite different…my friends would take their time to play games, I would join sometimes, but usually I would not get myself involved. Majority of the time, I would be alone, trying to learn my craft, I would just watch tons of tutorials on how to beatbox, mainly based on content creation, and learning the art of doing it practically.”
He was first introduced to beatboxing at the age of thirteen. “I was quite familiar with the word but I didn’t really know what it was.”
He recalls watching a particular video on beatboxing that left him ‘super inspired’ and ultimately led him to try doing his own sounds, and started making short films, watch his own movies and be happy with it.
His passion for video editing and the whole art gave birth to what he is now pursuing with great vigour. For the particular video that has 7.1 million views, he shares that “this type of video has a lot of niche in the market. So I did some research from my end, and thought why not incorporate the kind of techniques that I usually use for beatboxing and entertaining people.”
“Even if they don’t know what beatboxing is, they will know what sounds they were. It’s basically me, making 20 different sounds,” he enlightens. But he wasn’t expecting the video to garner so much attention. “I thought it will be just a few thousand views and that would be it but somehow people really enjoyed it,” he heartily expresses.
Zonimong had created his channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/ZonimongImchen) a long time back, but started uploading videos only from 2017. Impressing upon that his videos usually comprises of everything, he further shares that “since I am a beatboxer, and I actually like to produce music as well and I love vlogging, my content mainly comprises of vlogging, music, and beatboxing.”
“It’s an art that I enjoy”, he pronounces and insists that “I still have a very long way to go, but if I could make this a full time job, it would be a dream come true.” And yet, he emphasizes that for now, “YouTube is not my fulltime job. It’s more like a hobby, and not really about the money or the rewards that I get, but I do it because I love the whole craft and art of content creation.”
He would also recall with gratitude the 1st Indian Beatbox Championship which took place in Kohima in 2017 while giving a big shout out to Yanpvuo Kikon for the initiative. It was following the championship, he believes that many people started beatboxing.
“Everyone has their new potentials, everyone has their own sounds. It’s basically a go for every beatboxer and because they are musicians, they can start a career with that, make music just like every other musician, it’s pretty much the same”, he further expresses on what future he sees for beatboxing.
Together with two of his friends, Zonimong also founded the Nagaland Beatbox Community, where they as a family, help each other out. “There are also so many beatboxers coming out which is amazing,” he observes while adding that Nagaland Beatbox Community is where they help each other grow, learn from each other and critique each other.
The 20-year-old, who hopes to become involved with the whole e-commerce business in the near future, lives by the one motto that says—“You can learn to do anything, but it depends on how you do it.”
