C
hicago producer PR Boo, formerly know as DJ Boo, is warm and down to earth when we speak to him about his part in Chicago’s newest dance music mutation, footwork. But the sound he is credited as shaping, via early productions such as 1997’s
ODB sampling ‘Baby Come On’, is as far out as his name Kavain Space, pronounced Cave in Space, suggests.
Part of house’s lineage, via its descendents ghetto house and juke, footwork’s frenetic 160bpm syncopated rhythms are deeply tied to the city’s dance crews – yet it’s popularity has also caused schisms in a city already split between a Westside and Southside rivalry.
Released on May 13 by Planet Mu, ‘Legacy’ collects 14 of Kavain’s most significant tracks to acknowledge his creative influence, from the dramatic, stuttering ‘Steamiditiy’ (which samples his ‘all time favorite’, Class Actions’s ‘Weekend) to the metallic march of ‘Robotbutizm’.
Recorded entirely on his trusty Roland R-70 drum machine, it sets straight the record of a pioneering artist whose sole record for the celebrated Dance Mania only made it to 50 test press vinyl before the label folded, and whose seminal Godzilla sampling track ‘11-47-99’ was initially released under the name of DJ Slugo, then a better known Chicago producer, to help its success – a dubious practice stretching back to Larry Sherman’s Trax Records...
What does it mean for Planet Mu to release ‘Legacy’, which surely refers to your legacy and the legacy of footwork? “Well, for me, it’s an honor because I never thought it would go this far. I never had no plans with it traveling. For me here in Chicago, I just play music from the heart. I never knew what the future would be dealing with Dance Mania, but after Dance Mania I just said, why stop, just keep making music. And over the years Planet Mu came into Chicago and gave us the outlet, and we took it. We felt that somebody wanted to take a chance and they liked the music. If anybody appreciates the music, I have no problem in just giving.”
Can you tell us about the importance of House-O- Matics? “Well, House-O-Matics was a dance group that was about five walking blocks from my house in the ‘90s. How I got introduced to them, it was a guy that used to dance for them named Deron Williams. He was a good person that I danced for. So he taught me how to dance. Five years later I actually saw House-O-Matics do a dance performance. I used to travel from the Westside to the Southside. Their dancing was totally different. It was like they enhanced the body movement, and I’d never seen the body do that. So I decided years later to be part of a new group. Once I walked in it was history, but in a different form. Because I thought I was going to just dance but I ended up becoming the DJ two weeks later.”
When did DJ Boo become RP Boo? “I think it was ’98. I was coming home from work, and when I got home my work associate told me he had a new DJ name for me. He took me into the concept before he gave it to me. He said that everyone was switching over to CDs, which stands for Compact Disc, and he said, “What does DJ stand for?” I said “Disc Jockey” and he points at my Technic 1200s and says, “What do you play on those? You play records on those. You’re a record player.” So it was RP Boo! He said it was because I still carried records and I still span vinyl. The next available night I had to spin, I had my records and my four track and I told everyone I had a new DJ name.
They thought I was going to change the Boo part of my name. When I told them what the new name was, they all stopped like ‘wooooow’. Over the months it soaked in. If you go to the streets of Chicago and people call me DJ Boo, that’s because they knew me before I became RP.”
You’re credited with starting the gene mutation that birthed footwork. What was your inspiration to start doing things differently? “All I can say is, once I got the [Roland] R-70 it was kind of hard for me because I didn’t actually know how to use it. I’d seen it used, but I didn’t know how to use it. It was already on one bar. I didn’t know how to take it from one bar to four bars, but at least the one bar, it kind of worked out good for me. So what happened was, I made a pattern, but when I liked the sound I didn’t know how to transfer it from pattern one to pattern two. So I learnt how to remember the sound and go into pattern two and recreate it, then do my add ons. So I did that for about a good month, then I said, ‘I’m going to call Deeon because I got another piece of equipment’, and he told me exactly what to do. So my style was already formulated by then, but I didn’t expect it to just change the sound. When I did ‘Baby Come On’, that’s what actually changed the sound in the bass and how the pattern was. It just went somewhere else and I didn’t know it until someone said, ‘you know what you just did man? You just changed the whole sound of the pattern. Keep doing what you’re doing and don’t worry about it!’ It was by accident, yep.”
Footwork is very much tied to its environment. Do you think it loses some of its flavor when it’s removed from Chicago? “No, no, no. I’m glad that you asked that because it needs to be displayed. A lot of people ask where I’ve been and why aren’t I doing this and that, and there’s an argument going on in Chicago at the moment over whether footwork can be played somewhere else. It’s the dancers that’s mad, they don’t see that it’s the music that helps them, they don’t look at it like that. They look at it and say, ‘Look at my talent, I want to be rich’. There’s just a bunch of selfishness here in Chicago and until they get it, we’re still gonna go elsewhere and play our music to make ourselves happy. We don’t care about Chicago no more, honestly, it’s gonna take the footworkers to understand. I’m not gonna stop, if you want to come and support me, I appreciate it, I guarantee they will have a nice time. If they don’t come, that’s their problem not mine.”
So the dancers are jealous that footwork is traveling as a sound? “There’s a guy named Charles and a guy called Jron, who are both new-age footworkers and there was a competition in 2005 called the King of the Circles, where they get into groups to go and battle each other. Whoever won that night became the King of the Circle. The first winner was Charles, and he became King Charles of footwork. When he was doing this, another guy called Jron used to go dance with him and they formed the Footwork Kings. They have done multiple tours, they’ve toured Russia and Japan, and other footworkers look at them thinking, ‘Oh, they rich’, ‘they dance with Madonna’, this and that. But they don’t see that it was the passion they have for footwork that put them there. But even Charles and the rest of them, they never took the music with them. Without the music, you can’t dance. They don’t see it that way, but now I’ve got the chance to do it. It’s not about the money. Like The Isley Brothers say, “Those that pay the price, come home with the least”. You put more work in, you get less appreciation. Those that take the shortcuts, they get praise. The truth will come out.” eventually.”
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