Nuke that Chicago Town pizza and kick back as JUKE infiltrates a heavy footwork battle without ever, under any circumstances, joining in.

The whirl-Windy City tour through juke and footworks’ evolution goes something like this. In the ‘90s, while a lot of people were looking towards Seattle for their favourite bullshit, juke was bubbling away in Chicago’s underground dance clubs, its choice of name not much deeper than a snappy hyperlocal tag for the booty house mutation. A decade later, radio stations were taking juke’s more commercial, rump-wining anthems for a spin, prompting some dance crews to shuffle over to the raw, foot-friendly syncopations that would come to be known as footwork, a scene which continues to drop jaws worldwide as videos of the crazy moves and furious foot battles hit the web.

And… that’s about where our knowledge ends and wild drunken guesswork takes over. We asked The Reverend Dave Quam – dj, writer, Planet Mu liner note scribe and general authority on all things juke and footwork – to take a shithot young photographer called Kira to his favourite local battle. They hit up an abandoned kindergarten-cum-juke house on Chicago’s Southside to watch some fist-bumping footwork divas murder the lino.

Feast your eyes and try to ignore the nagging suspicion that your dress sense sucks, your friends are at best a fifth as cool as these dudes – and your feet will never, ever do this stuff.

Dave Quam’s footwork Top 10

RP Boo – 11-47-99

DJ Clent – 3rd whurle

DJ Rashad – I’m Blowed Like the Wind

DJ Spinn – Ball Em Up

Traxman – Get Down Lil Mama

DJ Puncho – Let Me C U Juke

DJ Deeon – House O Matic

DJ Milton – Hole Hole

David Grantham – Daisy Dukes

DJ Greedy and Sleepy D – Nation Hoe

With The Reverend Dave Quam
Photos Kira Scerbin

[For JUKE Vol.03]
 

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