Chik-chika — the lilting compound-time beat of Ethiopian popular music, heard across the 1960s–70s Addis scene (Mahmoud Ahmed, Alemayehu Eshete) and in Mulatu Astatke's Ethio-jazz. The name imitates the hi-hat.
How it sits: four dotted-quarter beats per 12/8 bar. The hi-hat plays long–short on each beat (first and third eighth: chik-…-ka), the snare backs beats 2 and 4, and the kick hits 1, 3 and the eighth just before 3. Bass and organ share a long–short ostinato on the G minor tezeta-flavoured pentatonic (G A Bb D Eb), moving to C minor in bar 2. Tempo is the quarter: 126 is a dotted-quarter beat of 84.
Listen for the skip of the long–short figure — it should rock, not gallop.
Practice: say chik-a on each beat with the hat, then sing the organ line over it before adding bass.