To varying degrees, genres like Jamaican dancehall, banging techno, ghetto-tech, and even hip-hop live and thrive outside the album format. Their primary audience consumes the music through live DJ sets, mixes on radio, mixtapes, mash-ups, and all sorts of mixed whatnot, and with the hyper dance music out of Chicago called "footwork", the bpms are so fast and the music is so minimal, a kinetic mix set in a club is the genre's best listening environment.
DJ Rashad's previous work fits easily in this category, with his remix of "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" and his hit track "Teknitian" both being examples of pummeling, hectic, sample-packed miniatures. Bumping the two together will total up to four-minutes, while the average footwork DJ would weave his way in, and out, of these cuts in about a minute, minute-and-a-half tops. Flipping the script,
Rashad's
Double Cup might refer to the amount of "lean" the average footwork fanatic needs to drink to endure these often three-minute, sometimes even four-minute, bangers, and while drums still pound and tight loops still hypnotize, the producer's exploration of long-legged house music and other chilly genres helps make these new, comparatively epic track lengths quite necessary. "Show U How" sounds like a horribly scratched disco CD skipping in the most exciting way possible, and yet,
Rashad pulls some soul out of the shards, dropping the beat in the middle of the cut and creating something decidedly for the home listener. Weekend tokers and couch-lock regulars can expect titles like "Pass That Shit" and "Drank, Kush, Barz" to be the broken, bud smokers anthems they promise, but it's the closing "I'm Too Hi" that takes the cannabis cup, crossing into a prog-rock territory stoned groove and a 7:41 runtime, plus a very necessary keyboard outro that sounds like water was poured down the back of a robot
Bernie Worrell. Everything seems to be malfunctioning on the album, and yet,
Rashad loves the genres he borrows from so much, he can't ignore the solid grip of acid house ("Acid Bit") or the sweet slide of R&B ("She a Go"). These sparking satellites all remain in their respective groove's orbit, making
Double Cup footwork's most sensible and revisit-worthy album to date. ~ David Jeffries
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