I would say this monk is contemporary and influencing more people. Yogetsu Akasaka became a Buddhist monk about 5 years ago and at the age of 37 is reaching people with his beatbox music, "After I came back from my training at the temple, I was thinking that I wanted to do music again, but I wanted to do something as a Buddhist monk as well as a musician. I thought: maybe I can try chanting on my music. I was kind of afraid because this was something no one had done before – it was out of the tradition. But I just tried it, and it sounded really good to me, so I thought maybe I should do it for other people. And when I played in front of other people, they liked it."
Yogetsu explains how the sampling with loops can help a person meditate, "As a Buddhist, I believe people need to do meditation and experience something more than the material. What I'm actually trying to do is to make people experience something spiritual or maybe a certain state of consciousness. Live looping has the potential for that: to support the meditative state of mind and allow people get a spiritual feeling."
I think it's great he can use music talents to express his beliefs as a monk, "I am honored to be able to combine my passion with my religious beliefs, and that this has impacted people around the world." More here.
