Beatbox Vicar

A Devon vicar who produced a beatbox version of the Nativity has won a national competition. The Reverend Gavin Tyte's beatbox video has been watched more than 57,000 times on YouTube and was judged the winner of the Nativity Factor.

Hi my name's Gavin Tyte. I am a vicar and human beat boxer.

[BEATBOX SOUNDS]

And here I am at CRE Exeter.

[VOCALIZED BEATBOX]

I've been beat boxing since I was about eight years old. And I'll tell you a little secret. I got kicked out of Sunday School for making silly noises. Don't tell the Bishop of Exeter, he'll get upset. Yeah, I've been beat boxing. I guess then later on I became an ordained minister in the Church of England but carried on the beat boxing. Judging UK beat boxing championships. Doing festivals, and schools, and prisons and workshops all over the place. And now I get paid for making silly noises, which is great.

[VOCALIZED BEAT BOXING]

Yes I started off doing kind of impersonations and emulating other sounds. So I'd like to do Scooby Doo

[SCOOBY DOOS LAUGH]

And things that. Daleks -- exterminate! And you name it. And then I got microphone with this reel to reel tape recorder when I was little. And I started making drum sounds into it. And then I got into the whole hip hop scene in the early 1980s and took it from there.

"Give, give it up for the Gospel of Luke exploding off the page like a tactical nuke. No doubt the people should about the things that took place."

Yeah well Christmas 2011, the beat box Bible took off in a major way. I did a video, a short three minute video for competition run by ITN and I won the competition and it was just amazing. The media got hold of it. It was just in every broad sheet newspaper. It was on the front page of the BBC news website. It was on ITV and BBC. And used all of the world.

And of course on YouTube and in GodTube and other places, and it just went ballistic and it was the greatest way of getting the Bible out there this Christmas. It was amazing.

I think my key motivation is to enable the Bible be communicated in a way that's relevant. That people will get it, and listen to it and engage with it and of course I just use my skills as a writer, my skills as a beat boxer, and my skills as a theologian I guess, as a vicar. And pull them together to make a video to get the Bible out there.

Yeah, I'd like to do a Passion video this Easter based on the Beatbox Bible. I'd like to write more of it. I've got several publishers interested in releasing a print version. I might be doing like a Kindle iPad version as well. I've got also some things in the pipeline. But yeah, I think it's now recognized that this is a great way of communicating the Bible. And so is not so what should we do it. How should we get it out there. How should we get it out there even more than it is already.

I would like to encourage the Church to realise that Christians have always been creative. In fact, to be human is to be creative. We were created in the image of a creative God. What had he been doing for five days? He'd been creating and then he made us in his image to be co-creators with him. So for me, using my creativity for the sake of the Gospel, for the sake of Jesus, is what it is to be human and I think we shouldn't be scared of that. We should embrace creativity.

It wasn't so long ago that Christians had the best art, the best music and the best poetry. So let's recapture that. Let's release Christian artists to be all they're called to be and of course not just keep it in the Church. I think the danger is a lot of Christian artists do stuff for the church market. And say "I'm going to create a Christian album for the Church market". Or Christian stuff for the church market. That's not where we're called to be. We're called to be out in the world, to bless it. And to redeem it and transform it in the name of Christ and that's what I'm about. I'm not interested really in just doing stuff for the Church. It's got to be out there in secular society where we're called to be salt and light.

[VOCALIZED BEAT BOXING]

"Give it up for the gospel of Luke. Exploding off the page like a tactical nuke. No doubt the people shout about things that took place, using stories from the people who met Jesus face to face. To get a perspective, I've tried to be objective. From an effective, reflected, messiah detective. Now Theo, my mate, you can certain of the truth, pick up your brother Luke because I'm a gospel sleuth."

[VOCALIZED BEAT BOXING]

Whop whop two, two, three, three, four, four.