Electronic · afro house · 4/4 straight

Afro house

122 bpm
Play it over changesother tunes, key, solo piano or guitar, loop, mixer
16ths

Afro house — house tempo and house kick (four-on-floor, claps on 2 and 4 = backbeat), but the top half of the groove is a hand-percussion section borrowed from South African and West African dance music.

How it sits: the shaker plays every sixteenth, leaning on the and. A rim plays three-three-two in sixteenths — twice per bar, dotted eighth, dotted eighth, eighth — against the straight kick. The congas answer in a two-bar phrase, high tones on the and of 1 and the e of 2, low tones late in each bar, ending in a three-note fill. The deep bass also opens with a 3+3+2, and the keys play short warm minor-seventh chords on the off-beats.

Listen for the rim and the kick agreeing only on 1 and 3: the 3-3-2 rubs against four-on-the-floor every half bar.

Practice: clap the 3-3-2 while stepping the four quarters, then switch hands.

Sources

  • standard practice; no transcribed source