As a kid, one of the best ways to stand out was by performing in your school’s talent show.
After all, let’s face it: the majority of the school day was not particularly exciting for anybody. You would sit in class, listen to the teacher give their lecture and take notes on everything that was being said. Even if you liked going to school, there usually isn’t a ton of time to express your personality and your talents in the middle of the school day.
Especially if your personality or your interests are a little bit more unusual than most.
With that in mind, one student had a particularly impressive and unique talent.
The video in question comes from a YouTube account called Snubby J, the pseudonym of Kent Jenkins with a series of videos dedicated to a unique talent. Instead of playing a guitar or a piano, Jenkins decided to take a more original approach. He made his instrument himself out of PVC pipe and it ended up functioning as a hybrid between a piano or xylophone and a drum set!
Though Jenkins has had a ton of successful videos since, it all started with his first online performance.
As the video begins, Jenkins explains to the crowd exactly what they’re all looking at.
He tells them that this is an instrument he made himself and that he’ll be playing some music on it. After that, he says he’ll be playing a medley of songs that they might recognize. As he starts, he uses paddles to smack the open ends of the PVC pipes, shooting sound waves out the other end. To get started, he smacks a few notes that are easily recognizable—it’s the theme song from the TV show The Office!
Still, Jenkins is only getting started.
After that first song, he quickly transitions into the Peanuts theme song as well.
By this point, the crowd is beginning to understand what Jenkins is doing—but they’re really on his side when he gets to the double-time part of the Peanuts theme song. Just when they get the flow of what’s happening, he switches into Mozart’s “Turkish March.” Still, he’s only getting started. Throughout the video he plays another easily recognizable eight to 10 songs.
By the end of it all, his friend joins him onstage to play “The Final Countdown”—and the crowd goes wild!
The video was popular, needless to say, as it has since amassed some 18 million views on YouTube!
It was so popular, in fact, that Jenkins felt compelled to re-record it without a crowd from a higher angle so that anyone watching could see exactly what was going on at each stage in the song. Although it features all the same music, the music is higher quality and you can really appreciate exactly how the instrument is played.
Still, Jenkins’ story doesn’t stop with just a few viral music videos.
Although Jenkins was initially inspired by some of the performances done by the Blue Man Group, his videos garnered enough attention that he actually got to go backstage at their theater and play some music on their official instrument as well!
Perhaps most interesting of all is that Jenkins’ passion actually took him all the way to America’s Got Talent as well!
Unfortunately, there’s no video available of his performance from sources online and ultimately, Jenkins was eliminated in the Vegas round. Regardless, Jenkins ingenuity and passion for creating music carried him all the way from a viral high school talent show to a major television show and his own successful YouTube channel! For all that, plus the incredibly entertaining video itself, we salute.
Congratulations to Kent Jenkins—aka, Snubby J—on all his success! Check out the full clip below:
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