House music is once again evolving - it’s no longer ‘the house that Jack built’ but rather ‘the house that Juke built’. For Chicago’s highly energetic ‘Juke’ dance scene, shaking the Windy City skyline for well over a decade now, finally seems set to bump ‘n’ hustle the rest of clubland.
‘Juke’ or ‘footwurk’ is a heavily syncopated club sound stirring in elements of hip-hop and house. Synonymous with jerky dancing moves, collectively labelled ‘footwurkin’’ or ‘Juke dancing’, the movement has been around since the early 1990s, evolving out of the older, classic styles of Chicago house.
“The rise of house music in Chicago [during the early 1980s] gave rise to a number of house dance crews; as the music got older and people started giving it a new flavour, the dance crews changed their style and footwurkin’ was born” explains major Juke protagonist DJ Roc. “It was the rise of ghetto house that did it; people started making harder, grittier tracks on key labels like Dance Mania, the dancing followed and a whole new style was goin’ on.”
Many regard Cajmere’s 1992 production Percolator as a defining moment in Juke history. The cut was a raw and bumpy, super-intense, drum roll-heavy house jam that encouraged an angular new form of club dancing soon named after it. From there, several fresh dance crews emerged – the likes of House-O-Matics, U Phi U and The Tunnel. Local fast-rising producers such as Funk, Deeon, RP Boo, DJ PJ and even the Defected connected Paul ‘Get Get Down’ Johnson were aiming zippy nip ‘n’ tuck ‘ghetto’ records specifically at these gutter-dance troupes – several were actually troupe members - and so the movement gathered momentum.
"I have major love for RP Boo” Roc expresses, “he’s the main man, the true Juke originator. He was the first to come at Chicago house with a completely different idea; he had his own style, tweakin’ the beats and sounds and everything. That got a lot of people excited in the Chicago neighbourhoods, and they also started trying to do their own thing. His shit was genius….”
Juke tracks were incredibly lo-fi; basic workouts heavy on the beats ‘n’ bass, and pushing the absolute limits of what people could dance to in the 1990s. Nevertheless, they would lure Chi-Town’s youngest street dancers into the studio themselves and the scene would evolve yet again. At the turn of the century Juke tracks were speeding up again to around 150 BPMs and their percussive DNA was both mutating and intensifying; tracks were also pivoting on simple hype-up chants and refrains.
Enter DJ Roc – real name Clarence Johnson - who started recording Juke sounds in 2001, after positive studio interference from friend DJ Darkchild. That activity escalated in 2004, when he founded DJ collective and promoter syndicate Bosses Of The Circle; and then escalated again, when Juke legend Slugo expressed his admiration and subsequently helped Roc wheel and deal a number of successful mixtapes.
“The music has always been fun; the DJ battles and shit” Roc says, “but we’ve had this constant battle to get recognised, even in our own city. I mean, not so long ago, we had big newspapers and ABC talking shit up on us, but it didn’t go nowhere. And then there was ‘krump’ [the frenzied street dance scene born in LA and propelled into the mainstream following David LaChapelle’s 2005 cinema documentary Rize] stealing our thunder.”
Now, however, footwurkin’ is starting to gain international recognition thanks to the circulation of key tracks and dance videos via You Tube, and the excited social-media banter that has invariably followed. Influential labels such as the transatlantic-minded Planet Mu have also put their considerable weight behind the movement, preparing to release a number of tracks and long-players by some of Chicago’s brightest stars this autumn.
One such star is, of course, Roc, whose own bold and creative new album, Crack Capone, (the ‘crack’ mischievously referencing Roc’s rabid penchant for dark, hyper-jagged beats, savage percussive edits and wired sampling of mainstream Yank R&B) is released via Mu in October. Next month, Planet Mu releases Da Trak Genious by 20-year-old Juke newcomer DJ Nate – it’s an impressive and similarly chaotic collection of house-influenced tracks. Beyond that comes a new EP from Juke veteran DJ Rashad who, like RP Boo, was a former member of House-O-Matics.
“I think what we have is totally unique” Roc sums up. “For me, none of my records ever sound the same. My b-lines have to hit hard, and the toms and snares too; I like a darker, gutter vibe sure; but ultimately, y’know, I’m changing my flow every day. That’s why this music is so exciting. I’ll do whatever I can to push it to as many people as possible. We Juke producers are trendsetters, and we’re getting a little more love from outsiders now. There’s no reason why our sound can’t travel everywhere.”
The house that Juke built is about to relocate….
DJ Roc’s new album, Crack Capone, is released October 18 on UK-based Planet Mu Records.
