Ory

warp drive
Didn't mean to derail the discussion re. funky crossing over, its an interesting subject. Especially when there are funky-ish tunes from outside funky like 'What U Talking About' that ARE crossing over, at least in terms of that student crowd who love Annie Mac and Toddla T etc.

i don't see how that tune is funky-ish other than having ms dynamite on it.
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
I dunno, I must confess I haven't actually checked out the original! Definitely the roska mix has been battered by the funky DJs so i assume he meant that one
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I must admit I'm not sure if I was thinking of the original - I think that funky has popularised that sort of syncopated clap-rhythm outside of uk funky the genre, its probably the most pervasive influence its had on electronic music...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clave_(rhythm) < is this the one I'm thinking of? Seem to remember reading a good article online about how this 3:2 rhythm is found in a diverse range of genres...
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
the post-dubstep people have definitely taken the idea of using that rhythm from the funky producers, definitely. I don't think it would have occurred to them otherwise.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Two obvious examples of funky rhythms being used on songs which are popular with people who might not have even heard of/esteem funky:

Hot Chip
Jamie XX remix of Adele
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Sorry - 'fixed that for you', ie my slightly altered version is, with a bit of :p, more accurate than the original.
 

Blackdown

nexKeysound
the post-dubstep people have definitely taken the idea of using that rhythm from the funky producers, definitely. I don't think it would have occurred to them otherwise.

the "soca beat" pattern is in countless dark garage/early dubstep tracks, esp Horsepower "Classic Delux" and Agent X "Decoy"...
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
well I don't know much about the technical terms for rhythm patterns, but that horsepower tune doesn't sound that much like the pattern used in funky I was thinking of. I had in mind that 5 snares to the bar thing that you get in Ill Blu etc. There's also a lot more emphasis on swing in those early dubstep tracks too which you don't tend to get much in Funky.
 

muser

Well-known member
I must admit I'm not sure if I was thinking of the original - I think that funky has popularised that sort of syncopated clap-rhythm outside of uk funky the genre, its probably the most pervasive influence its had on electronic music...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clave_(rhythm) < is this the one I'm thinking of? Seem to remember reading a good article online about how this 3:2 rhythm is found in a diverse range of genres...

yea wayne and wax did a good peice about it in his blog. I think redlight was going for uk funky rusko style thinking it was going to take off, hasn't really happened though. but I'd say it was more than just taking some influence from UKF.
 

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
Pointless thread-weaving post - Ill Blu's newer stuff reminds me a lot of Belgian hardcore.
***
Also, this seems to be getting a lot of hype at the moment:
I guess it might mean more to me if I actually was of Ghanain descent, but it's pretty fun still.
(Ramzee's still never going to be one of my favourite MCs, but there you go).
 

Tim F

Well-known member
Yeah the "soca beat" in late 2-step was six beats per bar - kick kick snare kick kick snare. It'd be fun to trace a history of this, especially as it rose up through slightly more obscure tunes like Steve Gurley's remix of "Neighbourhood" and then suddenly was everywhere in 2001 (Agent X, yeah, and "Classic Deluxe", also Chris Mac and Bump & Flex and K2 Family and TJ Cases and...etc.)

Funky has a variant on this, usually kick snare snare kick snare snare (actually a 4X4 kick but you only really hear the first and the third kick clearly) - e.g. "Do You Mind" to use a well-known example. The Fives' "It's What You Do" too, though there the tonal differences in the snare hits and the early 4th kick and the lazy handclaps all work to effectively "decenter" the pattern a bit.

Whereas the 5 beats per bar snare pattern that Ill Blu mostly use feels quite different, the snares run across and almost instead of the 4X4 kick (and of course increasingly though not always they dispense with the 4X4 kick altogether, e.g. "Meltdown", their remix of "Green Light", also that amazing new emo-hoover tune they've been playing the last few months).

It gets confusing though - the snare on "House Girls 1" for example switches from the first pattern to the second, though it's not entirely obvious because they always have a snare on the 1 so it's always five snare hits either way (Lil Silva's "Against Yaself" is a good example of what "House Girls" would sound like if it never switched from the first pattern to the second).

Or on Crazy Cousinz's "Inflation", it's an Ill Blu-style 5 snare pattern (discounting the ratatat fills) but the first snare comes in just after the first kick so it sorta feels halfway between a 5 beat per bar pattern and a 6 beat per bar pattern. This effect is even more pronounced on their (similar) remix of Kid Cudi's "Day & Night".

In general it's pretty common for funky to play with the relationship between these two grooves. On Rudimental's "Midnight Affair" it's like the beat is pitching to the dead center between them - kick kick snare kick snare, with very 2-steppy quantizing - it sort of feels like there's micro-pauses throughout allowing the beat pattern to cover the bar (it's easy to not notice how supple and intricate the beat programming is on that tune).
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Re clave, as said, Wayne and Wax art the ones to look at. They did a brilliant edition of clave-run tracks in that series of blog mixes that lots of dissensus bods contributed to (can't think of the name off the bat), covering all of the Caribbean rim.
 
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