100 Years in Black American Rhythm: From Stomping and Clapping to Digital Grooves traces how core African-derived rhythmic principles evolved into the rhythmic DNA of jazz, funk, hip-hop, and modern digital production. This clinic centers on two foundational rhythmic engines: the Tresillo rhythm (a duplified form of 3:2 polyrhythm) and the Pentecostal Beat (the quarter-note pulse accented on 2 and 4), and demonstrates how these concepts reorganized Western 4/4 time into the backbeat-driven groove that defines American popular music.

Participants are guided through a performance-based listening timeline from early 20th-century stride and swing (Dodds, Papa Jo Jones, Kenny Clarke, Art Blakey, Max Roach) through funk, hip-hop, and contemporary producers and drummers (Clyde Stubblefield, J Dilla, trap production, and modern hybrid acoustic-electronic approaches). Musical examples reveal how long-pulse and short-pulse relationships function as a system of rhythmic modulation, allowing performers to shift fluidly between binary and ternary feels while maintaining steady time.

The session also explores rhythm as embodied cognition, using the human heartbeat (systolic and diastolic pulse) as an inverted shuffle model that explains syncopation, accent placement, and groove perception. From this biological anchor, participants examine how call-and-response, displacement, and timeline patterns operate across world drumming, jazz improvisation, and modern band contexts.

Designed for educators and performers, the clinic includes practical strategies for teaching steady beat, subdivision, and groove using culturally familiar sound, movement, and speech-to-rhythm techniques. Attendees leave with transferable tools for improving rhythmic literacy, ensemble cohesion, and stylistic authenticity while gaining a deeper historical understanding of how Black American rhythmic systems continue to shape global popular music.