RP Boo's Guide to Historic Chicago Footwork Spots
RP Boo's Guide to Historic Chicago Footwork Spots
Footwork is a style of music that's just as associated with the dance as with the music that emerged in Chicago, evolving from ghetto house with a smattering of Detroit techno to grow into its own confident sound by the mid-1990s. The music meshes chopped vocal samples, syncopated beats, and repetitive, mind-bending basslines with a tempo ramped upward of 160 BPM. DJs grew the genre in accordance with the dancers, who hit the floor with frenetic, unforgivingly fast steps while demonstrating stamina, precision and flawless technique.
If there's one name associated to the genre, it's RP Boo. Growing up on Chicago's West Side, he remembers his cousins heading to iconic nightclub The Factory, where they began to dance differently. "House music was being birthed by the locals," recalls Boo. While he was too young to experience go inside, he hung out at house parties and seeing the Factory's influence change club dancing across the city, blending breakin' with pop and lock styles and dance grooves.
We hopped in RP Boo's car to tour round the historic Footwork locations, from the Factory beginnings to its ongoing presence on Martin Luther King Drive (which went on to inspire Boo's 'Bangin’ On King Drive' song). Check our video here and see the spots below.
In this Guide
The Factory
“Madison and Kilpatrick on the west side of Chicago. This space right here was a building known as The Factory, one of the first places that birthed footwork. Early 83’ to late 85’ there were a lot of breakdancers coming in and out. I couldn’t come here as I was a small fry, not old enough. My cousins would come from the south side as they loved to party, they would have house parties and the dancers from The Factory would come, which is when I got to see the dancing. The DJs at these parties were better than the ones on the radio - and that was the birth of my passion to become the DJ.”
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Elk's Lodge
“Ghetto house heaven! This is the southside's Elk Lodge.What makes this place special is that all the kids from ‘the projects’ came down to party here from 90’-97’ - that would have been the first official generation of the dancing. From 8-2am, it was the place to be. This is actually where I met DJ Rashad for the first time. To work here at night and go to my day job in the morning - priceless. I really miss it. ”
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Dalton Expo Center
“Before it became Dolton Expo Centre, it was a grocery store - so much space. I think its a church now. This was the place where we were fuelled by the dancers, they were having fun, they inspired us to keep the tracks going. Some intense battles happened, ain't no kiddie land battles, but for the ‘Get It’ battles. ”
More InfoCavallini's
“Around 96'-98', there were no more house parties in the city of Chicago. So Malcolm Walls and Ronnie Sloan (House-O-Matics) got together to do a dance party out this way. This was a big factory, my first rave party in Chicago was here. This is where I first heard the term 'juking'. Saturday nights were hot, I’ve seen some intense [dance] battles in here. Terrasquad, Wolfpack and Creation - those are the [dance crews] that changed the style and developed it to what we see now. ”
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Dr. Martin Luther King Drive
“The [oldest and largest African American parade in the US] happens here once a year, the second week of August [Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic] . This is the street where the news cameras are, where the parades were. This is the starting line of the parade, you have floats coming from that way and entering from this way. I have entered from the parade in this realm into the other realm. I am the first person to have ever DJ-ed the parade on turntables, live - that was 91-92.”
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