- A collection of tracks made between 2002 and 2007 that show the footwork pioneer at his rawest, darkest and most inventive.
- Out of the three key names known in Chicago's footwork scene—RP Boo, DJ Spinn and the late DJ Rashad—RP Boo is somewhat of an outlier. Spinn made soulful, R&B-influenced juke. Rashad, before his untimely death, left the world a magnum opus called Double Cup, a decadent album that showcased the genre's potential for sweeping, sensuous musicality. On the other hand, RP Boo, who grew up as Kavain Space on the West Side of Chicago, set his production apart with dark-sided minimalism and aggressive vocals. These sounds were all laid out on his debut album, Legacy, which was released in 2013 to critical acclaim. That stockpile of archival material contained all the ingredients for an intimidating battle record: a devastating blend of rightful braggadocio, looped vocals and bleak, stuttering beats. Ten years on, battle crews are harder to come by than they were in the golden years of footwork. The spirit of those dance floors lives on through this second volume of the Legacy series.
The album comprises unreleased material made between 2002 and 2007, a time in which Space recalls the footwork scene being "very scattered around," as there were few venues to host footworkers. The battle record has consistently been Space's bread and butter, and the context around Legacy Volume 2 adds new urgency to his work. Around 2005, Space explains in a press statement, Wala Williams created the War Zone dance battle series on the West Side of Chicago. Then, on the South Side, a footwork venue emerged called the Battle Grounds, "where you would hear the future of footwork tracks being played by DJ Rashad and DJ Spinn."
The album, one of Space's more eccentric and barren projects, highlights tracks that have already been shared with the public in some way, either through official releases or through any one of his off-the-cuff mixes he uploads to SoundCloud. This includes samples that Space has recycled throughout his discography. In fact, the familiar crackling melody and celebratory "Night and day," derived from Phreek disco classic "Weekend," shows up twice on the album, forming the sunny base of both "Last Night" and "Under'd Stat."
Longtime followers of Planet Mu's footwork releases will recognize several tracks—the album's opener, "Eraser," is a classic RP Boo cut that first showed up on the label's album, Bangs And Works Vol. 1, a project which ushered footwork into the global dance music consciousness. The song's doomsday ambiance perfectly embodies the competitive nature of the footwork battleground, featuring a voice that descends like acid rain, commanding dancers to smoke their opponents on the dance floor: "Fuck that, burn 'em all," to which the response is, "That's what you do when you got the flow."
With a similar militancy, the Godzilla theme song floods "Heavy Heat," which appeared on Planet Mu's follow-up compilation in 2011. Here, a patchwork of vocal samples clash like a rowdy room full of people who are doing a lot of talking, and not as much listening. µ20 (20 Years Of Planet Mu) was the original home of "Azzoutof Control," the most direct link to juke (which, also sitting around 150-160 BPM, is footwork's smoother, less aggressive cousin) on Legacy Volume 2. The RP Boo fingerprint is in the titular phrase that loops, unchanging, for bars on end.
The strangest passages of the album are in Space's unreleased material, which is another testament to his strength as a collagist. These more experimental tracks embody the trippiness of deep-listening records. A cartoonish horn spirals and a sample loops like a scratched record throughout "Knock Out." On "Flo - Control," words loop and overlap as phrases are introduced and cut out like a coin being stealthily passed around in a shell game. Space can also spool gold out of personal experiences, like "Pop Machine," which he made while working at Speedway Oil Exchange, following a night when a customer struggled with a faulty vending machine. Space found this scene so funny that he started repeatedly pushing the machine's buttons, an act represented in the song's tick that ricochets from the first beat to the second as Space's spliced vocal jolts: "Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop machine."
But Legacy Volume 2 isn't all stark silhouettes and dizzying loops. Tucked in the later regions of the album is the track I returned to most often, and one of the smoothest in Space's catalog, "B.O.T.O." Its contours are smooth, as its relaxed hip-hop melodies soften the acerbic tone of Space's words: "Burn off this one / Burn off this one / I can't do nothing but burn / I can't do nothing but burn." Even at his warmest, that competitive fire never dies.
Tracklist01. Eraser
02. Heavy Heat
03. Total Darkness
04. Flo Control
05. Under D-Star
06. Say Grace
07. Knockout
08. Azzoutof Control
09. B.O.T.O.
10. Pop Machine
11. Porno
12. Off Da Hook
13. Last Night