Footwork Artists

Chicago’s late-1990s juke scene produced footwork from the fast pulse of ghetto house, with RP Boo, DJ Rashad and DJ Clent among the producers who drove the rhythmic shift. The music commonly sits around 160 BPM, moving in clipped, urgent patterns that leave room for sudden stops, skitters and sharp changes of emphasis. Heavy sub-bass can bring drum and bass weight, while chopped rap, pop and other sampled vocals puncture the tracks with hooks, commands and fragments.

Its rhythm is made for footwork dancing, a house-dance style built on extremely quick, intricate footwork. That connection gives the music a physical logic: beats don't simply roll forward, they create gaps and accents for dancers to answer. Footwork grew out of ghetto house rather than replacing it, taking its stripped-down drive to a much faster, more syncopated place. The word juke is sometimes used for footwork, though it can also refer more narrowly to the closely related Chicago sound that emerged from ghetto house alongside, and slightly before, footwork.