If you frequent the Icebox, you may remember that I once wrote about beatboxing at the competitive level. Specifically, I was hyping up the Grand Beatbox Battle of 2025 because the roster for this year was stacked with legends.

To everyone’s surprise, GBB25’s solo category was just terrible. Not only did the legends of beatboxing let everyone down with bad performances for the elimination rounds, but the bracket portion of GBB seemingly ended with one upset after another.

To explain why GBB25 had set such high expectations, it is important to understand who each of the contestants are. Let’s go through them in the order that they are listed on the official site.

Osis was the runner-up at GBB24, where he paved his way to the top through complexity and extremely rewatchable routines. His presence on stage was amazing and he won the crowd over with his sick beats.

Remix was the third place winner at GBB24. He is a crowd favorite beatboxer, and as the name implies, often makes cover tracks of other famous beatboxers. His performance on stage was heavy and complex, leading him to claim the third place title.

NaPoM is a legendary American beatboxer who has claimed numerous championships around the globe in multiple categories. He placed second in GBB23’s solo category, but joined the judges side in GBB24’s solo battles. He participated in GBB24’s 7-to-Smoke, a king-of-the-hill type of battle, where he claimed first place and qualified for GBB25’s solo competition.

Exallos, BlackRoll, King Inertia, Max, and Pono each qualified by winning their respective regional qualifiers around the globe. BlackRoll had participated in GBB24 but did not make it past eliminations. However, King Inertia was regarded as the titan from this list of names. He appeared in at least two GBBs in the past and is known for his extremely difficult techniques.

PacMax qualified for BeatCity Japan 2025, where he won first place and qualified as the representative of Japan to GBB25. The problem here is that he is from France and was invited to participate in BeatCity. While I personally don’t agree with this decision to allow non-Japanese contestants at a Japanese qualifier, PacMax’s performance was extremely versatile.

Finally, there were 11 wildcard winners. The first four were no surprise since they appeared in last year’s GBB. Kaji, from Japan, won BeatCity 2024 and this year placed first in wildcards with his submission called “Stimulation.” Wing, from South Korea, is a legendary beatboxer who has appeared in several GBBs and is currently regarded as the world’s single most entertaining and complex beatboxer. He claimed a wildcard seat just by re-using his round against Kaji from 2024! In other words, he is by far the crowd favorite even without his group, Beatpella House.

The rest of the wildcard winners are not that relevant. While they can put on great performances, everyone already knows they would not be battle-worthy.

Finally, Codfish was the final of the 16 participants. Although he is a previous GBB winner and known to be a legendary beatboxer, he made it in just by a hair. He actually lost to Pono in the Oceania qualifier before getting super lucky. Basically, Julard’s withdrawal left a space open for more wildcards. That space was filled by Improver, a legend from Russia, who then decided to withdraw as well. 

Now that you know just how specific selection can get for GBB contestants, it is pretty clear that things seem to fall in place for a very legendary competition filled with several winners. Therefore, everyone in the beatbox community was looking forward to seeing the solo category because it was so stacked.

Unfortunately, things immediately went downhill fast. First of all, the sound system was seemingly worse than last year, where power and bass dominated the stage more than technique and musicality. Some beatboxers accounted for this, such as Kaji, Wing, NaPoM, and PacMax. These were the top four of this year’s elimination round. Other beatboxers had their work simply come out better, such as BlackRoll and DEN, who finally made it to the bracket after years. Finally, the last two to make it to the bracket were Osis and Codfish, who had great complexity to win them a seat.

This means that the remaining beatboxers, including King Inertia and Remix, did not qualify for the bracket. It could not just be chalked up to the sound system, though. The top eight eliminations were much more complex and versatile. King Inertia focused on musicality but was still beat in that field. Remix focused on his bass technique but did not have enough variety to be ranked above the top eight. The rest of the beatboxers have great technique but not enough to battle, so it was no surprise how they ranked.

The bracket contained a number of upsets. First, Kaji beat Codfish without losing a single vote from five judges. This did not surprise me, but it was still upsetting to some people to see their favorite Codfish eliminated. He made it into the competition by a hair and then ranked last in the bracket. 

Then, Osis lost to PacMax. I think Osis did not seem prepared enough for what PacMax had in store for him. It was unfortunate to witness, since Osis was one of my favorites for this year’s competition. He should have carried his momentum better.

The third upset was when BlackRoll beat NaPoM. Many people in the beatbox community dislike BlackRoll because of his energy. Imagine if you asked ChatGPT to build you a good beatboxing round. The result would be whatever BlackRoll puts on stage. Despite that, he won all five of the judges’ votes and even went on to beat Kaji in the third place qualifier. I guess there is no denying that he has skill.

The two “warpath” beatboxers at this competition were Wing and PacMax, which was no surprise at all. Everyone was happy to see Wing in battle mode, especially since last year his stage presence was shut down too early. Wing has increased in popularity due to being a musical beatboxer that draws in audiences from every setting. He is also part of the beatbox group called Beatpella House, who are representing South Korea to the world. PacMax proved at both Florida Beatbox Battle and BeatCity 2025 that he has the weapons needed to win a GBB.

The final took place between these two beatboxers, and honestly I wouldn’t have it any other way. The rest of the roster had just been utterly disappointing, so it made sense these two would deserve to be in the final. 

My personal favorite beatboxers at the moment are Wing, Kaji, and Osis. Of course, I wanted Wing to be the champion. Unfortunately, PacMax came in with impressive rounds but only beat Wing three-to-two. 

This may have been difficult for you to follow if you aren’t into beatboxing, but the point is that the high expectations everyone had for the 2025 competition quickly died down. On the bright side, the loopstation and producer categories this year were phenomenal. Next year, GBB will no longer be in Tokyo. For now, expect the competition to take place in Warsaw, Poland.