RP Boo - I’ll Tell You What!

The Quietus

RP Boo lingers around the foundations of footwork. Producers like DJ Earl, DJ Taye and Traxman have opted for a denser, more musical sound; Jlin has pushed the genre so far that ‘footwork’ is no longer an apt descriptor, something she happily admits. Boo meanwhile likes to keep things sparse, coarse, unedified - but his commitment to footwork’s core genetics should not be confused with resistance to change. With these foundations, he has continually remoulded the genre.

I’ll Tell You What, Boo’s third album, is noticeable for its sharp left turns. It’s his first full-length of entirely new material, and eschews some of the elements we’ve come to expect. On ‘Bounty’, Boo raps over beats of fidgety restlessness, with lyrics that playfully drop references to Blondie and James Brown; ‘Wicked Blu’ takes the frenetic production and oppressive bass synonymous with footwork, but strips away the tempo and adds almost portentous levels of drama. Synth-boff arpeggios and flurries of flute are pared dynamically against one another. ‘U Don’t Know’ is all lush sentimentality; ‘Back From The Future’ is a surefire banger.

There’s real ingenuity to this lack of clutter, the bizarre assortment of samples given enough room to beguile. Hermann-eque strings, regal horns and ectoplasmic vocals build up the strange tapestry, always with precision and purpose.

Given that dance music is always in search of a new rhythmic language, sub-genres do risk the slide into stasis. Footwork, however, appears to have no shortage of peculiar, adaptable, and idiosyncratic producers that resist any such outcome. I’ll Tell You What is slippery, contrary, devious - to listen is to be seduced and mangled.

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Pitchfork 78

On his first album of all new material, the Chicago footwork pioneer pushes at the outline of the genre, playing with convention and keeping listeners thrillingly off balance.

The Guardian 60

(Planet Mu)

RP Boo is dubbed “the unsung godfather” of footwork, the hyperfast ghetto-house mutation and dance style that’s been quickening Chicago’s step since the early 90s. But though the scene came to wider attention a decade ago, Boo is only now making his debut studio album. As he ad libs on opener No Body: “I’ll get the turntables, you get the floor”. His battle tracks are still written with dancers in mind, combining frenetic polyrhythms, spartan, skittering drums, shadowy paranoia and dense tapestries of samples.

It’s an album designed to destroy pacemakers, but the most interesting tracks tend to slow down the tempo. Earth’s Battle Dance has a beat that feels ritualistic, like it’s trying to conjure spirits, before dropping into laidback soul. Back from the Future sounds like a bleak sex jam; and U-Don’t No provides a contemplative moment of melancholy. I’ll Tell You What! doesn’t have quite the same crossover potential as Jlin, whose Black Origami album on Planet Mu topped almost every best electronic album list last year. But it’s a definitive statement of a sound that has staying power – and packs a triple-speed punch.