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Chicken Grease

D'Angelo · 2000

A defining neo-soul study in deliberately loose, behind-the-beat pocket and feel.

Artist
D'Angelo
Year
2000
Genre
neo-soul
Drummer
Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson
Tempo
92 bpm
Time
4/4
Feel
drunken behind-the-beat funk
Difficulty
advanced

Drummer's Quick-Start

Practice tempos

Woodshed
56bpm
Building
74bpm
Target
92bpm

The feel

A drunken behind-the-beat funk in 4/4 around 92 BPM. A comfortable mid-tempo — lock the backbeat first, then shape the dynamics.

What to watch

  • •Sit just behind the beat and let it breathe; don't chase the click forward.
  • •Funk lives in the hi-hat and the ghosted snare — tighten those before the backbeat.
  • •Advanced: isolate the single hardest bar and loop it slowly before ever playing along.

How to learn it

Well-known tutorials exist for this one — use the links below, and play along from your own copy.

Generated from this song's groove profile — analysis only, no notation. A human-reviewed AI brief with a full groove breakdown, key moments and song map replaces this as briefs roll out.

Learn it

Find drum tutorials on YouTube ↗

iDrum links to where lessons already live — we don't host recordings or publish transcriptions. Play along from your own music.

Discussion

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