Backbeat - Cross Beat

Cross Beat

Cross-rhythm. A rhythm in which the regular pattern of accents of the prevailing meter is contradicted by a conflicting pattern and not merely a momentary displacement that leaves the prevailing meter fundamentally unchallenged—New Harvard Dictionary of Music (1986: 216).

In Sub-Saharan African music traditions (and many Diaspora musics) cross-rhythm is the generating principle; the meter is in a permanent state of contradiction.

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