AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
More and more Brits are tripping over themselves for Chicago Footwork. And I'd probably have to apologize for that pun if more people knew what Chicago Footwork is. It's a fast-paced music and dance genre pioneered by people like RP Boo, who recently got a hero's welcome in the U.K. Tracy Kawalik has this look at why Chicago Footwork is growing in popularity there.
TRACY KAWALIK: The ground is shaking outside of an exclusive East London club set in an industrial park in the middle of nowhere. Inside, music thumps at a supercharged pace that rattles your chest. This is Tropical Waste, a party that's fueling London's footwork community. Local footworker Will Gore (ph), who performs as Malt Beverage, pauses between dance battles to describe the scene.
WILL GORE: Incredible music, insane bass, crowded. People, like, going crazy on the dance floor. No phones out. It's just, like, the best night out.
KAWALIK: Footwork is made up of lightning-fast, intricate dance steps that look otherworldly. The music evolved from house and juke in the 1990s but speaks to London's affinity for cutting-edge club music.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Hey.
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KAWALIK: The crowd is here tonight for one reason - the artist RP Boo, a pioneer of Chicago Footwork who crafted many of its most famous tracks. He's sitting in the green room before his set, marveling at the evolution of the London scene. Ten years ago, he says, you wouldn't find anyone who knew how to dance footwork in the U.K.
RP BOO: But when I saw them last time at Tropical Waste, I was like, these guys and girls are good. They made me feel like I was at home.
KAWALIK: Before he was a music producer, RP Boo started out as a dancer in Chicago in the late '80s at house parties and underground clubs. It was there he discovered a new way to move.
RP BOO: I seen girls and guys just in circles. I seen people just rush into the circle. I'd never been to a party like this.
KAWALIK: Chicago Footwork has been referred to as electronic dance music on steroids. And it's not just in London. It's global - Paris, Berlin, Tokyo. But ShaDawn Battle, a professor of African-American literature at Xavier University, says it's important to remember footwork's roots in Chicago's South and West sides.
SHADAWN BATTLE: You can't take away race from Chicago Footwork because it starts with the living conditions that Black people have been subjected to. For me, it's a vernacular dance of resistance.
KAWALIK: Battle, who produced the documentary "Footwork Saved My Life," says that globalization has the potential to erase this history.
BATTLE: What happens if this thing becomes footwork and not Chicago Footwork? So when you take that away and you're just learning these moves divorced from all of the sociopolitical context, then it just becomes moves.
KAWALIK: But U.K. culture, she argues, has a history of incorporating international protest music, from skinheads and punks to soundsystem culture, dance hall and reggae. There's an appetite for countercultural music here.
BATTLE: It becomes a space of belonging for people who've been pushed out of the center.
KAWALIK: And this sense of community is why dancers flock to Tropical Waste. Most of the room wasn't even born when RP Boo released his first record. As RP Boo steps out to perform for a sold-out crowd, he reflects on passing the torch.
RP BOO: I know I can't do this forever. But somebody asked if it would be a day where I have a understudy. Well, I say it don't have to be somebody from Chicago because of how footwork has opened up. I think it's going to last for a long time.
KAWALIK: And with that, he sets the dance floor ablaze.
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KAWALIK: For NPR News, I'm Tracy Kawalik in London.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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