Talking with Traxman about Juke

Traxman

Recently I was speaking with Traxman about the state of Juke around the world.  According to him it is a worldwide phenomenon despite Chicago seemingly ignoring what is happening outside of its borders.  There are a handful of Juke producers that travel outside of Chicago and even fewer that travel outside of the US.  I don't think it is on purpose as the producers within the city are unaware of the worldwide Juke movement.  Producers are just now becoming aware of Japan's Juke movement with labels like Booty Tune Records at the forefront.  When the Ghetto House movement was going strong and producers that were on Dance Mania Records started travelling outside of the US it was based on who had "hits" on other labels that licensed the popular music from Dance Mania. As that era started to end and a new generation of producers were producing Juke (which, by the way, is not the same as Ghetto House) they were unaware of the process as Dance Mania was in hiatus.  They simply did not have the exposure they needed to take advantage of the audience overseas.  Suddenly with the advent of Soundcloud and Bandcamp there was a new bridge to the fans of the Chicago sound that allowed people overseas to have ready access to Chicago music.  The fans still have a tendency to lump Juke and Ghetto House into one category but overall it's the Chicago sound that they are hearing and they want more.  With current labels like Halsted Street Entertainment, Planet Mu, Booty Tune, Tek Life and others the Chicago Juke sound is gaining ground.