Electronic · footwork · 4/4 straight

Footwork (juke)

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

Footwork — Chicago dance-battle music grown out of juke, at about 160 but felt at 80: the clap lands only on beat 3 of each bar, so the body moves at half speed while the kicks and toms run at full speed for the dancers' feet.

How it sits: the kick groups the sixteenths 3+3+3+3+4 — five kicks a dotted eighth apart that fight the quarter pulse and land back on beat 4. Bar 2 drops the last kick and spends beat 4 on a triplet tom run, the rhythmic gear-change footwork is known for. The 808 bass doubles some of the kicks; the two-note piano is a stand-in for the chopped vocal sample, stuttering on sixteenths in bar 2.

Listen for the kick never settling on 2 or 4 — there is no four-on-the-floor or backbeat here.

Practice: tap the 3+3+3+3+4 kick against a metronome at 80 (half time) before going to 160.

Sources

  • standard practice; no transcribed source