Funk & R&B · go-go · 4/4 straight

Go-go (DC pocket)

96 bpm Loop: all
16ths

Mixer

Keyboard

Strums

1
↓↑↓↑
2
↓↑↓↑

Go-go — Washington DC's live funk (Chuck Brown & the Soul Searchers, Trouble Funk, Rare Essence): a mid-tempo pocket that a band holds for twenty minutes while the songs change on top. The kit is funk — kick on 1, the "a" of 2 and the "and" of 3, snare backbeat, hat eighths — but the signature is the percussion on top: congas answering the kick with sixteenth pairs on the "and-a" of 1 and 3 and open tones on the "and" of 2 and 4, and a cowbell or roto-tom on the "a of 1 / and of 2 / a of 3 / and of 4" — the dembow-shaped "a-and" pair twice a bar.

The keyboard stabs copy the bell exactly; the guitar chanks the backbeat with an up-stroke after it; the bass plays a one-bar root riff with a b7–root turn into 4. One chord for as long as you like.

Listen for the bell/keyboard "a-and" pair: it sits a sixteenth before the "and" and makes the pocket roll forward. Compare reggaeton-dembow, the same pair on the snare. Practice: solo the drums and clap the bell; then play the bass under the congas, not with them.

Sources

  • standard practice; no transcribed source

Keyboard

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