Funky/London/UK House

B

Blackdown

nexKeysound
Tim F said:
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).
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quite difficult to talk about this using words rather than a grid since the "soca beat" pattern is pretty stiff unless you tuck the second and fourth kick earlier in the bar by an 8th (a subtlty that's lost when writing "kick kick snare kick kick snare" :) ). that tuck back corrupts the underlying 4x4 pulse though.

switching a kick for a snare and reverting to the 4x4 positioning gives what i think you're describing as the Do You Mind pattern aka the classic funky pattern, though I think it's "kick snare kick snare kick snare kick snare", only with the snares in offbeat "soca" positions, rather than "kick snare snare kick snare snare"... but maybe we're talking about two different patterns here :)

my favourite feeling in funky drums is probably the effect you go onto describe tim, where the snares are running almost entirely offbeat and if you didnt have the kicks in, for example if they were EQed out, you'd assume the entire track started 1/8th later. add them both in and there's this glorious tension as to where the start of the bar is (the kick wins as it's the downbeat).

that said benny ill said to me once of the "soca beat" pattern, that it was supposed to lead with the snare, so it's "snare kick kick, snare kick kick"... kinda hard to tell as a listener without a grid in front of you, given bars are cyclical...
 
M

muser

Well-known member
the one I've always associated as the main rhythm in soca that is in alot of UKF, which you hear in reggaeton and kwaito tracks is the k..sk.s.k..sk.s. beat.

Alltho clearly there alot of variations and that part might only go on for a bar or two bars in the rhythm (like mzo bullet for example), but to my ears its the most prominant part I hear in all those styles.
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Whilst we're discussing this, anyone know the historical precedents behind that rhythm you get in scratcha DVA tunes like this, where you get those stuttery triplets at the end of each bar? Its not a widely used pattern in Funky as its very awkward to dance to but it sounds pretty cool when alternated with a straighter pattern like in that tune, or just used every now and then as a fill.
 
M

muser

Well-known member
you can hear that in brazillian carnival music alot if you skip to 3:18 on heres a good example,




dont know the main roots of it though, im sure ive heard drummers play that rhythm at soca carnivals aswell.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Similar rhythm in these:





I don't think either of these are 'from' the uk funky scene but both get played by funky DJs. (Could be wrong here though)
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
yeah, I was racking my brains for examples other than scratcha. That Bassjackers tune still sounds mental. Of course you're right, its a carnival thing. Natty dub is a pretty extreme example of it though to the point where the whole tune sounds like its falling apart, with no 4x4 kick holding it together.
 
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Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Yes Mate feat. Natasha Carver, Shantie, Starkey, Depeo, Preshus, Kie and Topsee!



This reminds me a lot of Genius Cru actually.
 
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Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
I recorded the Devine Recordings session on live FM earlier today, with DJ Jewelzy and DJ Bigz. Had a go at a tracklist too. Check the Eleanor Rigby tune at the start! Some other great new Mad One tunes in there too.

http://www.mediafire.com/?3npzwtaz9u5rznt

0.00 - Eleanor Rigby vs Mad one (!)
3.20 - Motherboard - Champion
6.00 - ?
8.50 - ?
10.30 - Deep in the valley (Jewelzy Dubplate) - Rudimental feat. MC Shantie
12.30 - Break that bitch - Smoke-off-ski
15.20 - Sound (remix?)- Scottie D
17.10 - Nitro - Lil Silva
19.40 - Hey Girl - Ear Dis
21.20 - ? - LR Groove
24.00 - ? Cowbell tune ?
25.10 - Signal free - Money Anderson
27.40 - Klambu (Seany B remix) - Bassjackers
30.00 - Its My House - Mad one (with New Horizons sample)
31.50 - Reign (?remix) - Hardhouse Banton
34.30 - ? but sounds amazing mixed into...
36.20 - Bangin em out (the Circle?) - Mad one
39.35 - Against yaself - Lil Silva
41.35 - DJ Bigz dubplate with 808 cowbell???
43.48 - ? - Undisputed
45.50 - Something hard (?) - Mad One
48.30 - Superman - Black Coffee ft. Bucie
51.00 - Some deep house tune?
54.00 - Another deep house tune? (heard this one loads)
57.10 - He's the man - Black Coffee ft. Bucie
60.00 - Holograph - Roska
63.00 - Big on the scene (?) - Fully Kurupted
65.30 - Mirror Dance - Afefe Iku
 
Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
Miss Fire is supposed to be giving away a free EP on her soundcloud page today. Will post the link once she uploads it.

Cheers for the Devine show btw Benny, on the download now.
 
T

Tim F

Well-known member
Hearing "Lost In Your House" as an instrumental underscores even more strongly how Cooly G-like it is (but I probably like it better than any Cooly G productions even, at least as a standalone - Cooly's stuff sounds best for me in the mix).

Miss Fire's versatility is pretty amazing.
 
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