Over the past decade, there has been consistent hype for the resurgence of ghetto house and its multiple evolutions. The genre, in particular, has lent its influence to the ever-growing Juke/Footwork scene which has seemingly bred itself in the urban environments of Chicago. Owing much of its style from the late-90’s ghetto scene made known by Jammin Gerald, Houz Mon, Parris Mitchell, DJ Deeon, DJ Funk, and DJ Slugo, Juke has perfected its vibe from the flavors of genres from every spectrum – featuring an extremely pitched-up take on house, techno, Miami bass, and hip-hop all rolling at you at 160 bpm.

Specifically, the Juke sound is described as a mutation of house music, where it has become increasingly popular within Chicago’s urban culture – mainly in the ghettos of the city’s south and west. The atmosphere of the production is much more stripped down than any other variant of house music, though – presenting a faster, more lo-fi vision of the spectrum where its affiliations to disco and gay culture have been stripped and replaced with the influence of the 2 Live Crew’s sexually explicit Miami hip-hop, once referred to as booty or ghetto house. Below you can scope a video briefly highlighting the development of Chicago’s ghetto house scene…

Juking was introduced to Chicago as a style of competitive dancing, the sound associated with the moves quickly saw itself develop into a Detroit-based variant known as ghettotech, which is almost identical but has its own style of dance called ‘jit’. The predominant difference between the scenes of ‘juke’ and ‘jit’ (besides their respective hometowns) is their associated styles of dance – where juke focuses on the footwork aspect and jit highlights body-shaking movements.

To be honest, both styles are mind-blowing – both due to their extreme demand of athleticism and the dancers’ uncanny ability to find the hidden beat within each track. In my opinion, the music of both scenes are nearly the same – both borrowing their inspiration from the roots of the ghetto house movement and the immense catalog of influential record label, Dance Mania Records. Below you can find a brief MTV feature highlighting the juke/footwork culture in Chicago…

Simply speaking, the juke sound is built from a heavy focus on the syncopation of drum sampling, where tracks are sped up and slowed down over weird, disjointed beats. The tracks are normally peppered with repetitive, shortened vocal samples which are manipulated in order to keep the pace of the high-tempo style of the music. Here, the traditional ‘four-to-the-floor’ thud of house music has been removed in favor of stuttering beats so scattered that it’s occasionally hard to work out where the rhythm is actually headed. This state of confusion is further muddied by the injection of immense basslines that appear and disappear, often resurfacing at apparently random moments throughout the tracks. Further topped by the looped bursts of the lo-fi, distorted vocal samples, the ability to follow the beat truly takes some practice for even the most complicated of musical tastes.

While the ghettotech scene has experienced some degree of crossover success, juke and footwork have remained an entirely local phenomenon within Chi-town’s urban landscape – a state of affairs that presumably might change thanks to the interest of British electronic auteur Mike Paradinas, aka μ-Ziq. For those not familiar, Paradinas is the force behind the famed, genre-bending UK label Planet Mu – home to countless artists whom have changed the face and energy behind electronic music, as a whole.

Nearly 6 months ago, Paradinas released a 36-track mix featuring some of the hottest producers within the footwork community (DJ Nate, DJ Rashad, DJ Roc, DJ Tha Pope, and DJ Trouble, to name a few). Some of my favorite tracks on the mix: DJ Tha Pope’s “Jungle Juke” which samples Tight Fit’s classic 1982 jam “Lion Sleeps Tonight”, DJ Roc’s “I Don’t Like the Look of It” which chops up Oompa Loompa vocals, and DJ Nate’s “I am a Martian” which features snippets of Lil Wayne’s “Phone Home”. As described by Paradinas, “Footwork has hyper syncopated rhythms, sub-bass, offbeat tom fills, triplets and pitch manipulated pop samples; it takes a while to reprogram your brain, but it’s worth it. This sound has evolved over the decades from Chicago House, Ghetto House, and is part of Juke.”

Chock full of the footwork formula where each track is doused with scattered triplets and pulsating bass, the mix exhibits why footwork grabbed Paradinas’ attention – it is music intended to be entirely utilitarian, created simply for means of moving a crowd, but the sound ends up in the realms of avant-garde abstraction by default rather than by design. Furthermore, its development intriguingly mirrors the path of British urban music from garage via grime to dubstep. Now, thanks to the beauty of the internet, teens from the city have begun littering the web with thousands of videos and tracks – giving the world a taste of Chicago’s music made for Chicago and finally sharing it across the globe. Accordingly, juke and footwork tracks are ending up in the crates of London DJs which now has the genre headed off on another tangent. Case in point: two of this year’s most popular dubstep tracks – Addison Groove’s “Footcrab” and Ramadanman’s “Work Them” – each give nods to the footwork/juke vibe.

Paradinas’ Footwork/Juke mix has been listened over 11,000 times (at least 100 from myself) and surely provided a platform for further ‘footwork developments’ in the Planet Mu camp. Consequently, Paradinas followed the mix with the announcement of Planet Mu’s fresh singing of two key players in the footwork scene, DJ Nate and DJ Rashad. Furthermore, the label recently revealed the forthcoming release of “Bangs & Works Vol. 1” – a Chicago footwork compilation due out December 6th. Below you can check out a sampler of the upcoming compilation…

Before Paradinas and his Planet Mu label got involved, the scene’s primary means of communication with the outside world was via YouTube. Search under footwork and you’ll find dozens of videos of battling crews in sweaty clubs, warehouses, highschool auditoriums, martial arts gyms, and quite frankly, anywhere else these footworkers are able to gather.

The majority of these videos are posted by a 38-year-old event promoter, talent scout, and footwork fanatic named Wala Williams, who maintains a busy YouTube channel of related videos under the name Wala Cam. Below you can catch some of his footage…

In general, there is a hypnotic, slightly druggy quality to footwork’s minimalistic vibe. While none of house or disco’s sense of escapism is found in the sound, the tracks are held together by the repetitive nature of the drum section and vocal sampling. Every aspect of the sound reflects a grim urban environment, as though it was recorded in a dank, dimly-lit basement. It provides a vibe that definitely demands an acquired taste – upon the first few listens, the mind boggles a bit at the disconnect between the eeriness of the music and its intent to make people dance.

Then again, this same ‘against the grain’ aspect is really what individualizes the sounds within its spectrum of the electronic realm. Truly, both the music and physical dance associated with the sound acts as a snapshot of a world most people outside Chicago never knew existed – an inside look into an ever-evolving scene, changed one step at a time.

- McG