I'm running through some potential character ideas, and I am toying with making a kenku monk. The main issue with kenku is that they cannot speak, but they can imitate sounds they have heard. Instead of using descriptive words ("My kenku makes a sound of a growling dog to convey his annoyance"), I am thinking a way to do it is using soundboard apps on my phone. Some play short snippets from tv, movies, or songs, others have general sound effects, and there are some that you can use to aggregate sounds from other soundboard in one centralized place.

The theory behind it is the players would hear a modern song or clip so they will understand the concept I am trying to communicate, but the characters would be hearing an in-world analog that would make sense within their context.

It'll take a fair amount of work to compile a "vocabulary" of sounds to use, but I think it could be a really fun way to play the character.

Has anyone tried this, or something similar? Any other thoughts, tips?

I had a player do something like this, main advice is don't over do it. The player using the sound board app was a little distracting with over use (like playing sound effects during DM description). Besides that, make sure the volume isn't to loud or quiet for your group. After those tweaks it was smooth sailing