"I Wanna Learn How to Footwork"

First Lil B announces he's doing a footwork mixtape, then the New Boyz hang out in Chicago and discuss dance moves with the locals. Juke's biggest supporter these days is the Jerkin scene, almost keeping it alive on a national level. You don't even see this kind of blending going on in the Midwest so much. It's a beautiful thing.

Circle Jerkin

DJ Nate aka Baka - You're A Jerk (from Bakastine the Halloween Mixtape vol 1 2009)

Chicago vs Panama vs Nigeria. Panama still wins but I couldn't resist. Nate sounds pretty keyed in the intro/outro.

Little Feet

Johan's recent genre of the week caused me to watch kids dancing on youtube once again. This time around it's kids Jerkin sans skinny jeans to Carioca beats only a teenager could love. Funk Putaria is driven by the same griminess that fuels the other forms of favela funk, but there is something more playful going on especially in the samples and sound palate. I haven't found much of the music by itself to really judge it sonically or separate it from the other genres, but along with it comes a maybe coincidental/maybe not hobby that makes it seem like the kids in Brazil have become enamored by the kids in California. "Passinho" means little feet in reference to Carioca steps and in this case is more living room appropriate than something you should do at a rave. Some of the moves in these videos are basically the same "dip" done to the New Boyz, but done in shorts and tank tops in humid Rio weather. An interesting addition to the phenomenon of worldwide footwork no doubt. Take note of the various Capoeira nods as well, or at least less confrontational ones.

Question: Why are these videos labeled Passinho FODA?

Rude Awakening

Skitzso & Prince Ramon - Wake Yo Shit 2009

The beat for this track sounds like it's moaning while these two Sacramento rappers spit freaky tales at it. Definitely falls on the Hyphy side of the fence, but you could Jerk to this while shaking your dreads no problem.

Missed Connections

Gant Man - B2B Podcast 2009
DxFresh - Back it Up and Dump It 2009

The commonalities of Juke and Jerk have been on my mind lately, and my first example might be a little obvious and completely non-conscious, but nevertheless interesting. A loop of Weezy's Every Girl is not so out of place for Gant Man, the man responsible for the first Juke remix on a major label single. A Juke (or Reggaeton, Bmore, Kuduro, ect...) version of a current hit is sort of a method of staying current within the realm of music, and with the radio being such a force in Chicago there are no surprises within the first 3 minutes of this Back the Box mix. 10 minutes later Maluca pops up, but that's another story. As one of the ambassadors of Ghetto House to a lot of the younger world, and in many ways one of the more accessible DJs in the city (and by that I mean he plays A LOT, and on every side of the city) there is a definite possibility that the Southern California crowd has embraced Gant Man. Switch the E in Englewood for an I and buy smaller pants and you have DxFresh, not-yet-legal Nike fiend and real life jerk. Back it Up and Dump it is the same slice of Weezy as used above, with a few more cuts and an extra Autotuner. Lil Wayne samples are a dime-a-dozen (I'm up in little Haiti, I'm blowin' on Jamaica being an exception) but this little coincidence is a way for me to think about music without thinking about genres and rather the little missed connections in the spectrum. I mean, it's all Hip-Hop in the end right? Or is it all House music?

This is the beginning of Juke vs Jerk, and please feel free to run some tracks by me that you think might fit in.

"Not a G, But I Can Hit the G-Spot"

F.Y.I. - Nasty Girl 2009

A Jerkin group without a Myspace? Now I've seen everything. This is kind of like the skinny jeans version of Wait, and that's a compliment.

Swagger Like a White Boy

GM Boyz - Jerkin & Twerkin 2009

This is my shit right here. West Coast party Rap in skinny jeans. I guess it already is West Coast party music, but you know what I mean. I swear this won't become a Jerkin blog, I've just been spending a lot of time grabbing stuff off digitaldripped.

More Jerks

Vaughn da Kid - Feelin' Real Dougie 2009

Less slap in this "Jerkin" track, more stumbling synths and samples. Reminds me a lot of the Bay Area Myspace song stuff from a few years ago. Oh wait, so does everything from Southern California right now. If Hyphy ain't broken, why fix it? Vaughn the kid hails from the internet San Fernando Valley and has been rapping since 6th grade. His cousin Young Piff handles most of the production, who also did a song about talking on AIM. There used to be shame in the internet, where did all this brazenness come from?! I realized recently that this is pretty much the first time in my life that I've listened to music made by significantly younger people, for a significantly younger audience, which makes me officially old.

20,000 Pack Fans Can't Be Wrong

YB - Ratchet 2009

I ended up with way too many Jerking songs, and this one is the best of the recent batch. Less skinny jean talk and basically a textbook slap beat that would pass in the Bay a couple years ago. Some of these kids have me really concerned, especially Snatch Time Productions who sound no older than 14. Way too young to be getting geeked up dudes. That aside I'm digging TF, Lost Generation, and Vaughn the Kid too.

Good Press Lately

Few articles I've enjoyed in the past week...

XLR8R ran an article in the latest issue on ZZK records in which they are taken on a journey by everyones favorite Avant-Cumbia hooligans to the crews favorite haunts in Buenos Aires. Really makes me ask myself, what the fuck am I doing in this frozen shithole known as Chicago?


Said Magazine also ran an article I missed back in April on everyone's favorite Midwestern goth kids "Yes We Really Do Smoke Crack" Salem. Highlights from the article/interview:

*John: In a lot of white trash towns where we’re from kids are into that for some reason. They like to torture animals and cut themselves and bleed into cups and worship the devil. That’s everywhere. In small meth towns that’s really big. The Midwest has that on lock.

*“There is this song called ‘Haffa’ that I made when I was really, really high on OxyContin,” says 20-year-old Jack Donoghue, the main beat-maker of the triad. “I don’t think I would have been able to make it sound like that if I wasn’t.”

*Donoghue tells me straight-up that the last band fight was about member John Holland smoking crack in the bedroom (he’s supposed to hit the pipe and blow out the bathroom window), and all agree that the only drug they don’t really like is weed.

The New Fader is also full of some good stuff, Including Rupture's article on Dominican Mambo star Omega and Cheif Boima's article on "proto-Jerk" youngin's D-Lo and Sleepy D.