Boogie, following the example of post-disco, generally lacks the four-on-the-floor beat, the "traditional" rhythm of disco music; instead has a strong accent on the second and fourth beats, and tempo generally in the 110 to 116 beats-per-minute range. Aside from applying certain technological and promotional aspects of new wave music and having been fairly exposed to its subgenre synthpop, boogie is, however, R&B-rooted and predominantly draws from funk music. Other influences from a completely different music landscape include jazz. Typical boogie track can be characterized by mid-tempo rhythm, prominent use of slap bass, loud clapping sound, melodic chords and, obviously, synthesizers. The term, coined by British DJs Norman Jay and Dez Parkes, had been used on eBay to refer a specific form of early-1980s dance music of African-American origin.
History
1920s–1930s: etymology
The first documented use of the word boogie is dated back to 1929. Boogie, as defined by Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is an occasion for dancing to the strongly rhythmic rock music that encourages people to dance. Earliest association of the word boogie was with blues and later rock and roll and rockabilly genres.
1970s–1980s: current meaning
In the 1970s, the term was revitalized for disco and later post-disco subcultures. The term "boogie" was used in London to describe a form of African-American dance/funk music from the 1980s. The name boogie tended to be used as, although essentially used to describe disco records, the word disco had gained bad connotations by the early 1980s. Originally the word could be found in 1970s funk and disco records, most notably "Boogie Oogie Oogie" by A Taste of Honey and "Boogie Wonderland" by Earth Wind and Fire, but 1980s tracks like "Give Me the Night", "Boogie's Gonna Get Ya", "If You Want My Lovin'", "You're the One for Me", "Don't Make Me Wait" or "Break Dancin' – Electric Boogie" helped define the musical style of boogie. Throughout the 1980s, various New York City-based boogie groups began experimenting with the dub-infused bass which anticipated the sounds of house. One of these groups was Peech Boys, followed by D. Train, Vicky D, and Sharon Redd. While some record producers, such as François Kevorkian and Larry Levan, were polishing and extending the limits of urban-oriented boogie, others like Arthur Baker and John "Jellybean" Benitez drew their influences from European and Japanese technopop music. The latter approach paved the way for electro, and subsequently, freestyle music. Boogie had a popular following within London's underground scene, often based around nightclubs and club DJs due to a lack of mainstream radio support. Boogie records were mostly imported from the U.S. and were sometimes labeled as "electro-funk" or "disco-funk."
2010s: revitalization
Much later in the 2000s and early 2010s, indietronica groups and artists such as James Pants, Juice Aleem, Sa-Ra Creative Partners had been influenced by the sounds of boogie and 1980s electronic music in general. Chromeo, a Canadian duo, published a boogie-oriented album called She's in Control in 2004. Dâm-Funk, another boogie-influenced artist hailing from Los Angeles, California, published an album Toeachizown in 2009. During the mid to late 2010s, boogie was part of the nu-disco and future funk renaissance, the former a primarily European artists-led EDM phenomenon, fusing French house with American 1970s disco and 1980s boogie, and 1980s European electronic dancemusic styles, the latter connected to the vaporwave scene. Bruno Mars was one of the more mainstream 2010s artists influenced by boogie.
