Continental Drift: The Top 25 Club Tracks of 2020
Gabe Meier meditates on the everlasting presence of Baltimore club, footwork, and litefeet culture in his end of the year reflection.
continental-drift-top-25-club-tracks-2020
December 19, 2020
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# Continental Drift: The Top 25 Club Tracks of 2020
Gabe Meier meditates on the everlasting presence of Baltimore club, footwork, and litefeet culture in his end of the year reflection.
In the [first Continental Drift column][1]{: target="_blank"
rel="noopener"} of 2020, we laid out a mission to address and
contextualize "newly manifesting forms on their merits" and to match
them with an "adaptable, energetic criticism." Nine months later, the
material foundation of the dance music industry has eroded, while
its constituents are resigned to embodying their digital selves more
than ever before. Still, that mission remains salient as is the
necessity to move away from the commodification of music and towards
a holistic understanding of the craft, which includes some of the
ordinary, quotidian functions of creative life itself.
{: .highlighted}
[1]: https://www.electronicbeats.net/continental-drift-best-global-club-tracks-january-february/
At a glance, the street dance rituals of Baltimore club,
footwork, and litefeet are an odd fit with Raymond Williams' 1958
essay "[Culture is Ordinary][1]{: target="_blank" rel="noopener"}," but
the Welsh theorist's clarion call to understand culture as a "whole way
of life" could not be more crucial to interpreting a feverish year for
the dance music massive. In March, producer CalvoMusic crafted a cypher
of early pandemic angst in track "Bitch We From Baltimore," adding
a Bmore classic to the canon in the process. The [video tributes][2]{:
target="_blank" rel="noopener"}, and [later music video][3]{:
target="_blank" rel="noopener"}, immediately gave the song, in the words
of Williams, its "own shape, its own purposes, its own meanings." In
short, it retained a cultural presence beyond the phenomenon of
attention deficiency and depression that Italian autonomist philosopher
and media activist Franco "Bifo" Berardi referred to in his 2009
treatise on semiocapitalism [*The Soul at Work*][4]{: target="_blank"
rel="noopener"} as the failure of "the individual brain's limited
capacities of elaboration" against an endless scroll of information
or "the infinite vastness of the Infosphere." Koppi
Mizrahi's track "Wash Your Hands Wash Your Mouth" played a similar role,
immediately translating the pain, confusion, and excessive noise of
early spring into an anthemic, satirical ballroom vernacular.
[SoundCloud Content][5]{: target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"}
Presence is also an element of what German Jewish cultural critic Walter
Benjamin referred to as the "aura" of an art object in his seminal 1935
essay "[The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction][6]{:
target="_blank" rel="noopener"}." Aura, he claimed, depreciates as the
artwork is wrenched from its ritual and historical context. Kodwo Eshun
further developed Benjamin's idea of aura about half a century later in
his book on Afrofuturism [*More Brilliant Than The Sun: Adventures in
Sonic Fiction*][7]{: target="_blank" rel="noopener"} for the age of the
dubplate, arguing that the reproduction of a riddim on acetate discs
destines it to be "reborn in the middle of the industrial reproduction"
as a one-off remix or "third copy"---not exactly one-of-a-kind, but
certainly not a mere reproduction. Yet the key to sustaining this aura
is the specificity of the culture surrounding soundsystems and clashes.
These are ritual operations that are present today in the sounds of
artists like HANN, Shanique Marie and UNIIQU3, as well as in the
appearance of a footwork dancer [on the roof of a cop car][8]{:
target="_blank" rel="noopener"} during June's uprisings in Chicago.
Through engagement with the deep traditions and contemporary practices
of sounds like litefeet, dancehall and Jersey club, these artists have
produced sounds that transcend DJ livestreams and the collapse of
industry infrastructure.
[1]: https://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/59594_McGuigan__Raymond_Williams.pdf
[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np_vgyfzAIg&ab_channel=TheBaltimoreClubChannel
[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CarlhowBXpQ&ab_channel=RipKnoxx
[4]: https://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509534838
[5]: https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Fplaylists%2F1180626577&show_artwork=true&maxwidth=500&maxheight=750&dnt=1
[6]: https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm
[7]: https://ciudadtecnicolor.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/kodwo-eshun-more-brilliant-than-the-sun-adventures-in-sonic-fiction.pdf
[8]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aADItpRgypw&ab_channel=YellowJuneteenthChicago
Due to stay-at-home orders and the [homogenization][1]{: target="_blank"
rel="noopener"} of [music consumption][2]{: target="_blank"
rel="noopener"}, it was easier than ever to engage with niche,
geographically-dispersed sounds this year. Yet how much of that,
unmoored from any conceivable way of life, will inevitably go down a
black hole of memory? The sonic output of international clubbing brands
could not hold less relevance to a dance music culture that ties the
everyday life forms of artists, from DJ Manny's transcendent performance
of the Chicago canon (Tek*life* isn't a misnomer) to BADSISTA's
kaleidoscopic funk carioca-rave sounds, together in brilliant symbiosis.
These are discrete cultures that are heterogeneous, yet based in
parallel ways of life. In essence, they retain their presence.
Aura is not inherently lost in digital reproduction, but it is lost when
cultural forms are denuded of the ritual building blocks that
contextualize them in history and within contemporary social life. The
rave, especially in its most commercial configurations in cities like
Berlin, London, and New York, has been proven to be ephemeral in 2020,
but ballroom's family structure, Chicago's lineage of sound and
movement, and the street-level dance culture of litefeet and flex dance
music, evince a timeless resilience. This is not down to any proven
sonic hierarchy, but to their basis in language, history, and dance
traditions. In "Culture is Ordinary," Williams understood that the
challenge of the era was to forge a "good common culture." As the
industry itself desiccates and falls away, this simple message cannot be
understated.
*The Top 25 Club Tracks of 2020*
[Telekom Electronic Beats][3]{: style="color: #cccccc;text-decoration:
none" target="_blank" rel="noopener"} · [Continental Drift: The Top 25
Club Tracks of 2020][4]{: style="color: #cccccc;text-decoration: none"
target="_blank" rel="noopener"}
1. Amazondotcom & Siete Catorce --
Shells
2. BADSISTA -- XERECARIA (ft.
TAYA)
3. CalvoMusic -- [Bitch We From
Baltimore][5]{: target="_blank" rel="noopener"} (feat.
Charles)
4. DJAaron -- 6 MILLION WAYS
5. Dj Deekie West -- THE PERFECT
BEAT
6. DJ MACK -- AS PIRANHA DE BH MR BIM
7. DJ Manny -- U Got Me Dancing
8. DJ Sliink & DJ Jayhood --
Jersey
9. DJ SWISHA & Kush Jones --
Torcida
10. DJ Wawa- What It Means (DJ Delish's
West Philly Dub)
11. Dominowe -- The Prayer feat. Mr Alhab
(Core Tribe)
12. FITNESSS -- DÆ1R (ft. DÆMON &
SAJDAH)
13. Fridge, Organ Tapes & Yayoyanoh
-- Stunna
14. HANN -- Zilla
15. Jlin -- Lotus
16. Kamixlo -- Sick
17. Koppi Mizrahi -- Wash Your Hands Wash
Your Mouth
18. Leonce x Neana -- White Tee (Summer
Walker)
19. Loraine James -- Mmm
20. NÍDIA -- CHEF
21. Shanique Marie -- Ring The
Alarm
22. slikback -- WAXFIGURE
23. TAYHANA -- Amarte Azul
24. UNIIQU3 -- 7 DAY WEEKENDS
25. Zebra Katz -- LICK IT N SPLIT (ft.
Shygirl)
[1]: https://thebaffler.com/downstream/wrapped-and-sold-pelly
[2]: https://twitter.com/billygomberg/status/1336447993902288896
[3]: https://soundcloud.com/electronicbeatspodcast "Telekom Electronic Beats"
[4]: https://soundcloud.com/electronicbeatspodcast/sets/continental-drift-the-top-25/s-xK5w7AlqJcZ "Continental Drift: The Top 25 Club Tracks of 2020"
[5]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weFV-Ki_HbU
*Gabe Meier is based in Chicago and has been writing about the latest
evolutions in dancefloor music since 2012. [The Astral Plane][1]{:
target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="The Astral Plane
(opens in a new tab)"} is his primary outlet, spanning a blog, record
label and radio show.* *Follow him on Twitter [here][2]{:
target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="here (opens in a
new tab)"}.*
Additional graphic design by [Ekaterina Kachavina][3]{: target="_blank"
rel="noreferrer noopener"}.
[1]: https://dotheastralplane.com/
[2]: https://twitter.com/astralplaneblog?lang=en
[3]: https://www.instagram.com/royalcheeeseburger/
---
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blueprint: article
title: 'Continental Drift: The Top 25 Club Tracks of 2020'
date: 2020-12-19T10:00:10+01:00
wp_id: '194368'
subtitle: 'Gabe Meier meditates on the everlasting presence of Baltimore club, footwork, and litefeet culture in his end of the year reflection. '
slug: continental-drift-top-25-club-tracks-2020
teaser_image: legacy/continental-drift-top-25-club-tracks-2020/CW51_Continental_Drift_Site.jpg
contents:
-
type: text
text: '<p class="highlighted">In the <a href="https://www.electronicbeats.net/continental-drift-best-global-club-tracks-january-february/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first Continental Drift column</a> of 2020, we laid out a mission to address and contextualize “newly manifesting forms on their merits” and to match them with an “adaptable, energetic criticism.” Nine months later, the material foundation of the dance music industry has eroded, while its constituents are resigned to embodying their digital selves more than ever before. Still, that mission remains salient as is the necessity to move away from the commodification of music and towards a holistic understanding of the craft, which includes some of the ordinary, quotidian functions of creative life itself.</p>'
-
type: text
text: '<p>At a glance, the street dance rituals of Baltimore club, footwork, and litefeet are an odd fit with Raymond Williams’ 1958 essay “<a href="https://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/59594_McGuigan__Raymond_Williams.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Culture is Ordinary</a>,” but the Welsh theorist’s clarion call to understand culture as a “whole way of life” could not be more crucial to interpreting a feverish year for the dance music massive. In March, producer CalvoMusic crafted a cypher of early pandemic angst in track “Bitch We From Baltimore,” adding a Bmore classic to the canon in the process. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np_vgyfzAIg&ab_channel=TheBaltimoreClubChannel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">video tributes</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CarlhowBXpQ&ab_channel=RipKnoxx" target="_blank" rel="noopener">later music video</a>, immediately gave the song, in the words of Williams, its “own shape, its own purposes, its own meanings.” In short, it retained a cultural presence beyond the phenomenon of attention deficiency and depression that Italian autonomist philosopher and media activist Franco “Bifo” Berardi referred to in his 2009 treatise on semiocapitalism <a href="https://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509534838" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>The Soul at Work</em></a> as the failure of “the individual brain’s limited capacities of elaboration” against an endless scroll of information or “the infinite vastness of the Infosphere.” Koppi Mizrahi’s track “Wash Your Hands Wash Your Mouth” played a similar role, immediately translating the pain, confusion, and excessive noise of early spring into an anthemic, satirical ballroom vernacular.</p><p><a href="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Fplaylists%2F1180626577&show_artwork=true&maxwidth=500&maxheight=750&dnt=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">SoundCloud Content</a></p><p>Presence is also an element of what German Jewish cultural critic Walter Benjamin referred to as the “aura” of an art object in his seminal 1935 essay “<a href="https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction</a>.” Aura, he claimed, depreciates as the artwork is wrenched from its ritual and historical context. Kodwo Eshun further developed Benjamin’s idea of aura about half a century later in his book on Afrofuturism <a href="https://ciudadtecnicolor.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/kodwo-eshun-more-brilliant-than-the-sun-adventures-in-sonic-fiction.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>More Brilliant Than The Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction</em></a> for the age of the dubplate, arguing that the reproduction of a riddim on acetate discs destines it to be “reborn in the middle of the industrial reproduction” as a one-off remix or “third copy”—not exactly one-of-a-kind, but certainly not a mere reproduction. Yet the key to sustaining this aura is the specificity of the culture surrounding soundsystems and clashes. These are ritual operations that are present today in the sounds of artists like HANN, Shanique Marie and UNIIQU3, as well as in the appearance of a footwork dancer <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aADItpRgypw&ab_channel=YellowJuneteenthChicago" target="_blank" rel="noopener">on the roof of a cop car</a> during June’s uprisings in Chicago. Through engagement with the deep traditions and contemporary practices of sounds like litefeet, dancehall and Jersey club, these artists have produced sounds that transcend DJ livestreams and the collapse of industry infrastructure.</p>'
-
type: text
text: |-
<p>Due to stay-at-home orders and the <a href="https://thebaffler.com/downstream/wrapped-and-sold-pelly" target="_blank" rel="noopener">homogenization</a> of <a href="https://twitter.com/billygomberg/status/1336447993902288896" target="_blank" rel="noopener">music consumption</a>, it was easier than ever to engage with niche, geographically-dispersed sounds this year. Yet how much of that, unmoored from any conceivable way of life, will inevitably go down a black hole of memory? The sonic output of international clubbing brands could not hold less relevance to a dance music culture that ties the everyday life forms of artists, from DJ Manny’s transcendent performance of the Chicago canon (Tek<em>life</em> isn’t a misnomer) to BADSISTA’s kaleidoscopic funk carioca-rave sounds, together in brilliant symbiosis. These are discrete cultures that are heterogeneous, yet based in parallel ways of life. In essence, they retain their presence.</p><p>Aura is not inherently lost in digital reproduction, but it is lost when cultural forms are denuded of the ritual building blocks that contextualize them in history and within contemporary social life. The rave, especially in its most commercial configurations in cities like Berlin, London, and New York, has been proven to be ephemeral in 2020, but ballroom’s family structure, Chicago’s lineage of sound and movement, and the street-level dance culture of litefeet and flex dance music, evince a timeless resilience. This is not down to any proven sonic hierarchy, but to their basis in language, history, and dance traditions. In “Culture is Ordinary,” Williams understood that the challenge of the era was to forge a “good common culture.” As the industry itself desiccates and falls away, this simple message cannot be understated.</p><p><em>The Top 25 Club Tracks of 2020</em></p><div style="font-size: 10px;color: #cccccc;overflow: hidden;font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100"><a style="color: #cccccc;text-decoration: none" title="Telekom Electronic Beats" href="https://soundcloud.com/electronicbeatspodcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Telekom Electronic Beats</a> · <a style="color: #cccccc;text-decoration: none" title="Continental Drift: The Top 25 Club Tracks of 2020" href="https://soundcloud.com/electronicbeatspodcast/sets/continental-drift-the-top-25/s-xK5w7AlqJcZ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Continental Drift: The Top 25 Club Tracks of 2020</a></div><ol>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">Amazondotcom & Siete Catorce – Shells</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">BADSISTA – XERECARIA (ft. TAYA)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">CalvoMusic – <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weFV-Ki_HbU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bitch We From Baltimore</a> (feat. Charles)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">DJAaron – 6 MILLION WAYS</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">Dj Deekie West – THE PERFECT BEAT</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">DJ MACK – AS PIRANHA DE BH MR BIM </span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">DJ Manny – U Got Me Dancing</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">DJ Sliink & DJ Jayhood – Jersey</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">DJ SWISHA & Kush Jones – Torcida</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">DJ Wawa- What It Means (DJ Delish’s West Philly Dub)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">Dominowe – The Prayer feat. Mr Alhab (Core Tribe)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">FITNESSS – DÆ1R (ft. DÆMON & SAJDAH)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">Fridge, Organ Tapes & Yayoyanoh – Stunna</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">HANN – Zilla</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">Jlin – Lotus</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">Kamixlo – Sick</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">Koppi Mizrahi – Wash Your Hands Wash Your Mouth</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">Leonce x Neana – White Tee (Summer Walker)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">Loraine James – Mmm</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">NÍDIA – CHEF</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">Shanique Marie – Ring The Alarm</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">slikback – WAXFIGURE</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">TAYHANA – Amarte Azul</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">UNIIQU3 – 7 DAY WEEKENDS</span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">Zebra Katz – LICK IT N SPLIT (ft. Shygirl)</span></li>
</ol>
-
type: text
text: |-
<p><em>Gabe Meier is based in Chicago and has been writing about the latest evolutions in dancefloor music since 2012. <a href="https://dotheastralplane.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="The Astral Plane (opens in a new tab)">The Astral Plane</a> is his primary outlet, spanning a blog, record label and radio show.</em> <em>Follow him on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/astralplaneblog?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="here (opens in a new tab)">here</a>.</em></p><p>Additional graphic design by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/royalcheeeseburger/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ekaterina Kachavina</a>.<br>
</p>
---
Chunk #1 (Position: 0)
# Continental Drift: The Top 25 Club Tracks of 2020 Gabe Meier meditates on the everlasting presence of Baltimore club, footwork, and litefeet culture in his end of the year reflection. In the [first Continental Drift column][1]{: target="_blank" rel="noopener"} of 2020, we laid out ...
Chunk #2 (Position: 1)
Still, that mission remains salient as is the necessity to move away from the commodification of music and towards a holistic understanding of the craft, which includes some of the ordinary, quotidian functions of creative life itself. {: .highlighted} [1]: https://www.e...
Chunk #3 (Position: 2)
In March, producer CalvoMusic crafted a cypher of early pandemic angst in track "Bitch We From Baltimore," adding a Bmore classic to the canon in the process. The [video tributes][2]{: target="_blank" rel="noopener"}, and [later music vi...
Chunk #4 (Position: 3)
The [video tributes][2]{: target="_blank" rel="noopener"}, and [later music video][3]{: target="_blank" rel="noopener"}, immediately gave the song, in the words of Williams, its "own shape, its own purposes, its own meanings." In short, it retained a cultural presence be...
Chunk #5 (Position: 4)
These are ritual operations that are present today in the sounds of artists like HANN, Shanique Marie and UNIIQU3, as well as in the appearance of a footwork dancer [on the roof of a cop car][8]{: target="_blank" rel="noopener"} during June's uprisings in Chicago. Through engagement with the...
Chunk #6 (Position: 5)
Through engagement with the deep traditions and contemporary practices of sounds like litefeet, dancehall and Jersey club, these artists have produced sounds that transcend DJ livestreams and the collapse of industry infrastructure. [1]: https://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binarie...
Chunk #7 (Position: 6)
These are discrete cultures that are heterogeneous, yet based in parallel ways of life. In essence, they retain their presence. Aura is not inherently lost in digital reproduction, but it is lost when cultural forms are denuded of the ritual building blocks that contextualize them in history and ...
Chunk #8 (Position: 7)
In "Culture is Ordinary," Williams understood that the challenge of the era was to forge a "good common culture." As the industry itself desiccates and falls away, this simple message cannot be understated. *The Top 25 Club Tracks of 2020* [Telekom Electronic Beats][3]{: style="color: #cccccc;te...
Chunk #9 (Position: 8)
Zebra Katz -- LICK IT N SPLIT (ft. Shygirl) . [1]: https://thebaffler.com/downstream/wrapped-and-sold-pelly [2]: https://twitter.com/billygomberg/status/1336447993902288896 [3]: https://soundcloud.com/electronicbeatspodcast "Telekom Electronic Beats" [4]: https://soundcloud.com/electronicbeatspo...