the dabbling doesn't really bother me - it's more the false advertising as juke...like what happened with baltimore club via hollertronix, where the signifiers remain but in a more clean, populist club friendly format. and the original guys who don't want to sacrifice their rawness don't get to cash in. it's probably too early to speculate much about this kind of shady appropriation, but plundering of vital inner-city genres has happened before - i want to see all of the chicago guys get their dues first.
Wow man, you guys worry about the same shit we do!! haha. but seriously, that is one of our biggest concerns as of this point. We don't wan to be angry one day because some fake ass kids "reppin" juke try to be on TV and claim they are from Chicago, and can tell you about everything juke. That's currently happening, but I don't think these people are going anywhere.
And another concern is that it'll become popular for a short period of time, and then fade away, like Bmore. I gotta admit though, even after the fad of Bmore, I still love that shit, and talk to DJ Tameil and DJ sega on the regular. They're actually tourin with us for a bit while we're out in the UK!
But with the whole juke being taken by those who know nothing of it, believe you me, we're not gonna just be left in the dust. In fact, bok Bok is doing a show with them in Paris, Rashad may be doin an event with the Night Slugs folk, and a lot of things are in the works with Headhunter for Spinn N Rashad. Murderbot is our guy, and he's the main reason why a few guys in the UK have gotten into the juke/footwork stuff, and will probably be the reason why Spinn N Rashad will be working with folk in the UK.
So trust me people, we're already building shit up so that the guys who get rich off of it will be us as well as people like Girl Unit, and Headhunter.
On that headhunter track, we all know the reason his track is called footcrab is because he's not fully knowledgeable about the Chicago scene, but I'm not gonna hold it against him for still makin a pretty hot track. Honestly, the main reason why we, me, spinn & rashad like it is because it takes our style, and does something different with it. Now if he were to go around and claim that was juke, he'd have my flyin to Bristol for a word or two. But really, he's usin the style, and he's totally tweakin it to fit his own style, something most DJ's out here don't even try. Our biggest problem out here is simply no one wants to try and do anything new with the sound, they just sit around, make some of the same repetitive shit, they don't wanna put any work into their sounds, or they just wanna sound like everyone else. Headhunter & Girl Unit is a fuckin breath of fresh air for us!
While I can't stand here and say someone would ever footwork to either track, at least its not someone trying to make a footwork track in Estonia, and whose exposure to the footwork scene is nothing but the shittiest tracks that no one out here even listens to. I'm not even talking about anyone on this board, but we get facebook tags on crap like that all the time. For us, it's awesome to hear how someone was able to use our style, and make it fit in other awesome ways.
As to whether footwork tracks will become the next Bmore, or Kuduro, probably highly unlikely. Footwork tracks are not easily made on Ableton, or any system, and I really can't imagine many people trying to listen to it. As to juke, that shit is too fast to be blended in, so it'll probably either be juk-a-holics anonymous, which are most dj's out here in Chicago dj's! What I mean by juk-a-holics anonymous is the dj's who love the stuff, but refuse to play it at gigs, or even give shout outs to the juke dj's. Trust me, there's a shitload of em.
And basically, one of our points while we're out in the UK is to blend the whole UK funky scene and juke/footwork scene together, and try to create something new. We're planning on working close with a lot of the main artists out there to make sure that everyone has their place in this scene if it is to blow up. And we're really going to try our best to cement the ground now so that we won't have an ordeal where dubstep heads fight between awesome beats and wah-wah music.
But really, no matter how big this music blows, I'll make sure that Spinn, Rashad, and whoever else blows the fuck up still does footworkin events for free, or at no charge. The money will come and go, but the real hot tracks are here to stay.
In the music industry, you do everything for either the money, the publicity, or the love. NEVER FORGET THE LOVEEEEE
