DJ Nate

Producer and vocalist DJ Nate stands as a legendary presence in the Chicago-born footwork style as well as the city’s rap scene, above all its bopping dance movement. His debut album Da Trak Genious arrived in 2010 as the first footwork full-length to secure international distribution and press attention, opening doors for scene pioneers such as DJ Rashad and RP Boo while fueling the genre’s global spread. Although Nate’s productions shared the breakneck tempos, brain-pounding bass, and frenetic sample manipulation heard in those artists’ work, his output carried an additional layer of strangeness and grit that marked him as an outlier. After the album’s release he turned greater focus toward rap and R&B production, scoring an underground hit with the 2012 single “Gucci Goggles.” A lengthy hiatus prompted by health problems ended when Nate returned in 2019 with his second footwork album, Take Off Mode.

Nathan Clark grew up on Chicago’s West Side. Drawn first to rap and R&B, he began crafting footwork tracks and filming dance-battle videos while still in high school, spurred by a public-access program hosted by juke DJ Tha Pope. Blog coverage soon followed, prompting Mike Paradinas—founder of the British electronic label Planet Mu—to sign the twenty-year-old Nate in 2010, noting that the music’s energy recalled jungle and hardcore. Later that year the label issued the full-length Da Trak Genious, which had been preceded by the EP Hatas Our Motivation featuring the fan favorite “Ima Burn Him,” later named to FACT’s Top 100 tracks of the year; Nate also appeared on the label’s Bangs & Works, Vol. 1: A Chicago Footwork Compilation. Although these releases boosted footwork’s international profile, Nate gradually stepped back from the scene. Under the alternate names Bakaman and Flexxbabii he dropped the 2012 mixtape Flexx Washington, which included R&B slow jams such as “Rose Petals N Whip Cream” alongside the celebratory “Gucci Goggles,” an anthem of Chicago’s bop scene.

He kept issuing mixtapes and freestyles while occasionally hinting at fresh footwork material. At the close of 2016, however, an accident stemming from undiagnosed scoliosis left him paralyzed and confined to hospital care. After regaining mobility he resumed releasing music. A guest spot on Free for All—the debut album by Turkish trap producer Sami Baha, also signed to Planet Mu—preceded the arrival of Take Off Mode in 2019. Comprising tracks that dated back to 2010, the album resumed the direction of Nate’s debut and diverged sharply from the more polished, mainstream direction footwork had taken over the preceding decade.