RP Boo - I'll Tell You What!

The Guardian 80

Planet Mu

Chicago footwork pioneer RP Boo bought his first Roland R70 drum machine in the late-90s from the window of a budget equipment store. With no instruction manual, he didn’t know how to stretch out the bars, so worked exclusively in a one-bar pattern – formulating his frantic, multi-layered sound, crushing hyped-up dance floor commands into percussive rhythms and rumbling low end. Years later, after playing on a different R70, he didn’t recognise the sounds and had a revelation – the presets on his own had been mangled by everyone who tested out the model in-store. Imbued with the trials and errors of fellow Chicago drum machine enthusiasts, his sound was unique from the off.

RP Boo’s third album for the Planet Mu label, I’ll Tell You What!, sees this originality in full force: teasing out soulful vocal melodies (executed brilliantly on closing track Deep Sole, reminiscent of the late, great DJ Rashad) into skeletal, high-impact beats; skittering between paranoia and euphoria with rapid flicks of the wrist, and directing footwork dance battles on At War: “We are at war in the street, watch and witness!” RP Boo’s skill extends to feeding genuine personality into his tracks. U-Don’t No, a highlight, was made in the days following the death of his mother. If there’s one word to describe RP Boo’s revolutionary sound, it’s “legit”.