Fancy Footwork: How RP Boo, Jlin and Rick Owens Brought The Chicago Sound To Life

Fashion designer Rick Owens' shows are not just about clothing, but a feeling. There are no simpering waifs hanging underneath ornate creations here. Rick's models are broad, tall, aged, determined – you could imagine being tossed sideways by any one of them during subway rush-hour, or stared down in a bar for being in their path. Harnessing the power of the fearless body has become the drive of Owens' recent aesthetic.

In the game-changing Stepper performance, models stomped down the runway and broke into riotous dancing that sent surges through the audience, the near all-black collection bursting with life. Rick Owens is a fashion renegade like few others, and that extends to the soundtracks for his shows. In his more recent selections, Owens has given a new, unexpected context to the Chicago footwork sound; strength, versatility, beauty and aggression all harnessed in a way that has shocked some, but delighted the cherry-picked producers RP Boo and Jlin, of footwork-championing label Planet Mu.

When I heard that the Rick Owens menswear show back in January, and last Thursday's womenswear show, were soundtracked by RP Boo and JLin respectively, I cracked a wry smile. They're a perfect fit. The energy of Owens show found producers-in-arms in their sounds; the jarring energy of Jlin's 'Erotic Heat', and RP Boo's 'Heavy Heat' and 'Off Da Hook', seeping into pores and firing up the spine. In a year that's seen Fatima Al Qadiri and M.I.A. commissioned for soundtrack work for designers such as Kenzo and Versace, I was curious how these underground producers came into Rick Owens line of sight.

Well, some context. When THUMP spoke to RP Boo last May, it seemed unfair that an innovator in a sound that's been captivating a wider spectrum of fans over the past three years (thanks in large part to Planet Mu's stellar Bangs & Works compilations), and championing peers like DJ Rashad and Spinn, should only now be getting close to the recognition he deserves. His May trip was for his first NYC show after nearly 16 years of producing, yet there are no chips on his shoulders, no grudges to bear. In conversation he is boundlessly enthusiastic; his warm drawl taking its time to drive home his gratitude and love for Owens. How did it feel, I asked him, to be approached to soundtrack his show?

"Honestly? I didn't really know who Rick Owens was at the time. I was really honoured to be asked, but it was my manager that hit it home for me. She was like, 'Rick Owens is this insane, big-time fashion designer', and I realised that this was going to become huge for me. What I have come to respect about Rick Owens is that he's a very good listener. If something catches his attention, he always asks to see who the person of interest is. That's an honour in itself." That person-to-person recognition seemed to be a deal-clincher for RP Boo; seeking him out for a specially commissioned extended mix, rather than DJing out his tracks at a remove. Just beginning to tour, being commissioned by Owens - now finally reaping rewards for his innovation.

Even for a newcomer like Jlin, this recognition from and relationship with Owens has become a prized experience, too: "I told Rick that I had to hear how he sees. He has the vision and I have the sound, so how are we going to bring this together? I had to study his work very closely. It took me about a month, and some time to figure out what he wanted from me - even though he said he knew exactly what he was looking for in my sound." The golden question: What did Owens "see" in Jlin's sound?

"If I had to guess, he likes the raunchiness. The edginess. Just look at his work. He pushes the envelope. Footwork pushes the envelope too – it can be raunchy, jazzy, clean, so many ways you can do it, or all at once. There's such versatility. It can be totally out the box. I believe that if were me, and I'd have been the fashion designer, I would have put 'Erotic Heat' with the womens show. That particular track is very detailed, and women happen to be very detailed creatures. It fitted that show perfectly because it was detailed, it was raw, it was stripped down - and the track was the same way. When I make a track, I seek to leave no questions. If you had any questions before you heard the track, by the end, I hope to answer them. I try to leave no mystery."

Jlin's forthrightness is compelling. She figures each track as a fight to get her sound across. She tells me of how her mother told her to stop hiding behind samples – a mainstay of the footwork sound – and "do her". In "doing her", her signature is now productions that are sample-free, which is almost an oxymoron considering the current glut of footwork sounds from Chicago. Of that revelatory moment, Jlin recalls her mother hearing her reworking of 'Erotic Heat', and hearing "'It's good, but why does it sound so timid? It's like you're holding back. Let loose. The reason he chose you is because your sound is so big, but you're holding back right now'. After that, I knew exactly what I had to do for Rick."

The final, extended version of 'Erotic Heat' for the show is, fittingly, a game-changer. The aggressive energy associated with footwork's frantic, multi-layered compositions remains, but is more of a lingering stare-down than a call to arms. The drum patterns are complex, but there's more breathing space than in much else contemporary footwork; a loosing of the joints, and a leaner, meaner technique that lets the listener absorb each element in due time. Watching the shows back, it seems footwork really is the apt sound for a designer who defies expectations with such deftness of touch. In RP Boo, that defiance against received notions of footwork – slavish adherence to samples, overt rather than low-key aggression - hits home when he tells me that the tracks he mixed for the menswear show are nearly ten years old. How does it happen then, I ask, that it all looks and sounds so seamlessly futuristic, then?

"There's so much about the footwork music that hasn't been exposed to the ears yet, because I hold the main key to it. There's a sound that I have in my drum machine called a User. The first track that came into Rick Owens' show, 'Heavy Heat', it's a sound that comes out of the subwoofer that a lot of people think is a bass, but it's called a User. That's my signature sound. A lot of people are still trying to get that sound, but only I have it. DJ Rashad told me years ago never to get rid of my drum machine, because it has a warm sound in it that current sound-kicks don't have."

It's only now that we're hearing this signature too, I insist. One that contemporaries are trying to copy, but don't realise is nearly 20 years old. "Exactly", he replies. "A lot of people have been like, 'Where have I been at all these years?', but I have always been making music. Some of the tracks I've released on Planet Mu this past year or so were made in 1998. The tracks that Rick  used for his show? They were made in 2007 or 2008. I find the older footwork sound, that sound that's just starting to be released and appreciated now, is a much harder sound. That's why it fits with the Owens menswear show." Aside from the User sound in his drum machine, what would he say is his signature? What marks his sound out from the rest, in the way Owens does with his designs? Again, defiance.

"A lot of people expect to hear a certain style come from me, but I want to defy that. If I play you a track that you've never heard before, and you start trying to figure out what's gonna happen next, it's going to jump out at you and make you feel stuck. When I played at 285 Kent in New York, I was told that as people were dancing, they looked like they got 'stuck': the way I blend my tracks together means you need some time to understand where the groove is, and where it's coming from. They asked me what that feeling was, that being stuck, and I said, 'That's my style'. I grab people. It's like a fight."

An old phrase of RP Boo's springs itself on me: "battle material". The intuitive physicality of footwork dancing is as woven into the sound as its skittering drum patterns, and rapid-fire sampling. From afar, transposing that from the basements of Chicago to designer fashion runways seems no mean feat. Articulating that physicality though, RP Boo explained crafting his "battle material" for Owens as "bringing out the feeling that gets the dancer really hyped because, when we watch the dancers, that's how we build our music. We see how anxious they are to get in to this circle to dance. When I saw the male models walking to 'Heavy Heat', how they were marching, that's the atmosphere of how a footwork dancer would look going into a battle. What amazed me about that show is that, I saw footwork come to life through those models in a way that I don't see in Chicago anymore. Rick Owens gave footwork new life."

Did seeing the models walk to his sounds flick a switch in his mind; of how footwork relates to the body, and what story it can tell? "I like to tell stories with my tracks and, for me", says RP Boo, "that show was beauty and strength put together. The beautiful part is that you're seeing these masculine men walk through, with their Rick Owens clothes, and it's like - solid. When 'Heavy Heat' came on, it stiffened it up and gave it strength. It was tough and raw, but beautiful too."

All in, it seems the commissions have been a success. RP Boo is being given his due props, Jlin is pushing an original sound forward, and the shows are continuing to press the boundaries between fashion and music. Yet, there's a lingering feeling in that their commissions could just be one inspired yet small-scale symptom of the current swell of interest in footwork. Is footwork having a "moment" with Owens, or is it actually a forward thrust of electronic music in tandem with other art forms? Can you really take footwork from the club to the runway, and retain that core energy?

Jlin is unfailingly insistent in this: "I think it's natural because time is shifting. Everything has a purpose, in a particular time. We might not have come together, or have been ready to meet each other, years ago as we are now. I love the start of this movement because it's forcing artists from different worlds to come together. Me hearing how he sees, and for him to see how I hear. This whole body movement. Me, Rick and RP Boo came together to make a body. It started moving, and it's a beautiful thing to watch. We are all connected now."

Finally, I ask, aside from being sample-free, do you have a signature like RP Boo does? "Hell yeah I do. I have a formula called CPU: Clean, Precise and Unpredictable." Another wry smile. I'm sure Rick Owens would say much the same.

You can follow Lauren Martin on Twitter here: @codeinedrums