Footwork, also called juke, or Chicago juke, is a genre of electronic dance music derived from ghetto house with elements of hip hop, first appearing in Chicago in the late 1990s. The music style evolved from the earlier, rapid rhythms of ghetto house, a change pioneered by RP Boo, DJ Rashad and DJ Clent. It may draw from the rapid rhythms and sub-bass frequencies of drum & bass. Tracks also frequently feature heavily syncopated samples from rap, pop and other sources, and are often around 160 bpm. The term juke music may be used as a synonym for footwork music, or may be used to differentiate between footwork and the closely related proper juke music born in the 1990s from ghetto house together with footwork music, and somewhat predating it.

Footwork is also a style of house dance, closely associated with juke and footwork music^{[citation needed]}, and typified by very fast and chaotic feet moves.

The name "footwork" given to the genre refers to the footwork dance that accompanies it and is characterized by very fast structured dance footwork. The arguably first mention of the term "footwork" within the ghetto house scene of Chicago was WaxMaster's "Foot work" track in 1995. Footwerk and footwurk are two other forms of the term sometimes used to describe this genre.

The name juke is of unclear origin. It is believed to have originated from West African languages and came to Chicago use via Gullah. The term "juke" is believed to come from the Gullah word joog or jug, meaning rowdy or disorderly which itself is derived from the Wolof word dzug meaning to misconduct one's self.

The term juke, as being applied to particular styles^{[clarification needed]} of ghetto house, came into use from DJ Puncho and Gant-Man in the late 1990s by releasing tracks such as "Juke it" in 1997. Some originators of the footwork, notable example being DJ Clent preferred to call footwork music project house and were consciously avoiding the term juke, which was associated with DJ Puncho and Gant-Man. However, the term "juke" came to dominate the whole ghetto house scene, including footwork, often being used as a blanket term to denote any style derived from ghetto house and even its progenitor, ghetto house, was at times called "juke" too. In this regard, any style of music derived from ghetto house in the 1990s would be called "juke" music, or be described as belonging to "Chicago juke scene".

The terms footwork and juke, as referring to the fast syncopated genre of electronic dance music derived from ghetto house, may be used interchangeably. Apart from simply being synonyms, there is also a strong tradition to distinguish these two terms, where juke is constrained to the earlier years of the genre, with footwork in this sense being a more chaotic, complex and abstract offshoot of proper juke music, that brought wider attention in the late 2000s. Sometimes, the combined terms juke and footwork (or footwork and juke) are used to describe the single musical scene or musical movement, born from Chicago ghetto house. In this regard, as one review summarized, the situation with terms is analogous to jungle (music genre) vs. drum'n'bass dispute, where some people consider the terms to be mere synonyms, while others prefer to call jungle a proper progenitor of drum'n'bass.

Footwork music first appeared in the late 1990s to early 2000s as a faster and increasingly abstract variant of ghetto house. The genre evolved to match the energy of footwork dance, a dance style born in the disparate ghettos, house parties and underground dance competitions of Chicago. RP Boo, a former footwork dancer, is generally credited with making the first songs that fall within the canon by releasing songs such as "Baby Come On" in 1997 which is oftentimes considered the founding track of footwork. According to RP Boo, the first sign of the genre's emergence happened, when ghetto house first started to be played at a faster speed when a group of ghetto house DJs from the Chicago West Side started playing ghetto house records at 45 RPM instead of standard 33 RPM. Among other people involved in the creation of the footwork sound were DJ Rashad (with his 1998 track called "Child Abuse" (with DJ Thadz)) and DJ Clent (with his 1996 track "Hail Mary" (with DJ Slugo) and 1998 track "3rd Wurle"). During that time, in 1998, DJ Clent formed a crew of him and the likely minded producers, namely, DJ Spinn, DJ Rashad, RP Boo, DJ C-Bit, Majik Myke and others, called "Beatdown House" of from whom footwork originated. As DJ Clent put it, around that time footwork pioneers tried to consciously distance themselves from the "juke" label, which was being used to denote fast four-to-the-floor ghetto house music and was more closely associated with DJ Gant-Man and M Puncho, rather than with Beatdown House, who pioneered more abstract, sparse and menacing proper footwork music; however, despite their effort, the word "juke" started to be used as a label for footwork music as well.

Other early proponents of the genre included DJ Diamond (Karlis Griffin), DJ Roc and DJ Nate.