Pop music, and especially house, seems to be enamored of this beat on top of the "4 on the floor" and the closest I can get to a description of it is "tropical" which is unsatisfactory. I'm looking for a more technical description of this rhythm.
Cheap Thrills (Sia) the electronic marimba? throughout the song (starts at 0:23) -
Where Have You Been (Rihanna), synth at 2:17 -
Shape of You (Ed Sheeran), electronic marimba throughout the song -
The best I can do is say that the subdivision of two beats is 3+3+2 sixteenth notes, but does this very common subdivision have a better name?
Or for the visually inclined, over four beats the asterisks represent accented sixteenth notes:
* . . * . . * . * . . * . . * .