Downtempo

Downtempo is urban music after it stops chasing the bus. It takes jazz, soul, dub, funk, hip-hop, maybe a drum machine with bad habits, and throws them into one room with low ceilings and lower morals. The beat doesn’t run, it smirks. The bass does the paperwork. The samples drift in like unreliable witnesses. Nothing fits cleanly, which is the point: the groove holds the mess together like an old bartender who was born behind the bar. Chill Out wants a sunset. Downtempo wants an ashtray with a story under a few rays of light.