It’s not just the 16th notes, but that there’s 16 of them. 16/16, or 4/4 if you will. And the adoption of the tresillo (meaning “triplet”, but it’s 3+3+2) and the many variations you can do to it, it’s hard to make 4/4 sound “odd”. It’s possible to do (such as by changing the snare and kick drums to not be “correct”), but popular music tends to avoid that.
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It’s not just the 16th notes, but that there’s 16 of them. 16/16, or 4/4 if you will. And the adoption of the tresillo (meaning “triplet”, but it’s 3+3+2) and the many variations you can do to it, it’s hard to make 4/4 sound “odd”. It’s possible to do (such as by changing the snare and kick drums to not be “correct”), but popular music tends to avoid that.