Ronald Craig Jr., 17, is clear about where his love of music comes from.

"I've known music before I came out the womb. I am married to music," he said.

But Ronald doesn't dream of Carnegie Hall. Instead, he works to transform everyday sounds into his own unconventional art.

Ronald, aka "DJ Xcel," is a beatboxer in the group MOB, which stands for "mind over body" or "master of beatboxing." Joined by Mark "Fuzzy" Alford, 17, and Dominique "Marvin the Martian" Oliver, 17, the group has performed at Broad Ripple High School and Glendale Mall, leaving scores of popping and buzzing imitators in their wake.

The trio is passionate about beatboxing, a form of vocal music also known as "vocal percussion." Beatboxers mimic a wide variety of sounds, from car horns to snare drums. According to humanbeatbox.com, it "primarily is concerned with the art of creating beats and rhythms using the mouth. However, it also involves the imitation of sounds such as scratching."

"Beatboxing is something not only that you can hear, but something that you also feel," said Ronald, singling out Dominique as an example. "Have you ever heard a car going down the street or something? He has that built into him."

Although beatboxing has been around since the 1980s, when rap musicians Buffy, Doug E Fresh and Biz Markie developed it, the genre is back in vogue with artists such as Rahzel. Numerous artists, including alternative musician Bjork, have recruited beatboxers to give their music new direction.

Interest is up

Indy CD and Vinyl in Broad Ripple has noticed more buyers interested in beatboxing and spoken-word recordings. Some youths come in weekly to hear and then imitate Rahzel.

"Beatboxing is not a type of music where you could say it's straight up hip-hop," Ronald said. "It originated from hip-hop, but when you are a beatboxer, you can dip into all types of music.

"We're the rawest form of music you will ever find," he continued. "You have all the beats that you need, all the music you have right there -- your percussions, your strings, your woodwinds, all of them. And you have your vocals, you have your lyrics. You put that together, you have the rawest form of music."

When the trio beatboxes, Dominique provides the rhythm and bass, while Mark sings and Ronald adds sound effects.

Although they practice certain songs, their specialty is freestyling. For example, in a recent demonstration, Ronald imitated a rebellious child who refuses to eat his peas while the others paused for breath. Dominique and Mark shot back with an impromptu beat-harmony.

"It sounds like it's been rehearsed, but it's not," Mark explained.

MOB members see beatboxing as a unique form of expression. Although they are inspired by hip-hop, the group feels that type of music promotes sex, drugs and violence.

"We don't talk about those things because we feel that today's society is going downhill because the people talk about all that stuff," Mark said. "We're just gonna talk about good times."

"Bringing hip-hop back to where it belongs inspires my music," Ronald added. "God said something about making a joyful noise. I see it as God gives us this talent, I'm gonna make a joyful noise with it."

Hard to teach

Mark and Ronald have a difficult time describing how to make the "joyful noise."

"It's very complicated to teach somebody how to beatbox, 'cause you try to explain what you're doing in your mouth, but people do it differently," Mark explained.

Ronald tried to describe how to make the sound of a snare drum: "The back part of your gum and your tongue wedged in between will make a good snare."

According to Mark and Ronald, good beatboxers start young -- a child making sound effects as he pushes a race car is a budding beatboxer.

"A good imagination will make a good beatboxer," Mark said.

Ronald, for instance, learned to beatbox when he was a kid, creating his own sound effects as he watched cartoons.

"I would sit there and listen to the megatrons, and next thing you know he pulls out machine guns, " he said, imitating those sounds. "I always do Inspector Gadget cartoons and just listen to that beat, and I would try so hard to mimic it."

Each has own style

Just as each beatboxer develops his own methods of creating sounds, the group approaches music in its own way.

"We don't copy off of nobody; it's straight us," Ronald explained. "Like my friend Domi nique, that man came up with a beat last night from just the sound that you get when a car is backing up, like (beeping), he made a beat off of it. We never heard nobody do that before."

The group debuted at Broad Ripple High School's annual talent show in 2002, taking first place and starting a school-wide beatboxing trend.

With the help of manager and fellow Broad Ripple student Felicia Shaw, 16, the group is planning its first CD, "Press Start," and single, "Temptation."

Education, however, remains the first priority. Although MOB plans to stay together in college, they acknowledge the music business is hard, and so they have other plans. Mark wants to become a dentist, while Ronald loves writing.

Nevertheless, Dominique knows what he likes best.

"I love making beats."

ASSISTANT EDITORS: Rebecca Salois, 15; Maria Srour, 17.