Breakbeats, Bass, and London
How the breakbeat left the Bronx and, through Britain's rave and pirate radio scenes, became jungle, garage, and grime.
- 11973-1986 · New York City, USA
Early New York Hip-Hop
At a Bronx party in August 1973, the Kingston-born DJ Kool Herc used two copies of the same record to stretch out the drum break that dancers waited for. The breakbeat became the building block of hip-hop, and later of much British dance music.
Read the issue (members) - 21990-1998 · London and Bristol, UK
90s UK Jungle and Drum & Bass
Breakbeat hardcore grew out of Britain's rave scene around 1990, mixing techno with hip-hop's breakbeats and the sub-bass of Jamaican sound systems. Producers chopped and sped up funk breaks such as the Amen break, and by the early 1990s the music had become jungle.
Read the issue (members) - 31991-2002 · London, UK
Underground UK Garage
At jungle events in the mid-1990s, house and garage were often played in a second room. Garage offered a smoother, more soulful sound at about 130 BPM against jungle's 170, and it kept jungle's sub-bass while it grew into a London scene of its own.
Read the issue (members) - 42000-2010 · East London, UK
UK Grime
Around 2000 the darker, MC-led end of UK garage began to split off. Pay As U Go Cartel and So Solid Crew pointed the way, and MCs such as Wiley and Dizzee Rascal, who came up on pirate radio garage shows, built grime from there.
Read the issue (members) - 52001-2010 · South London, UK
Dubstep
Garage split another way at the same time. Between 1999 and 2000 producers such as Oris Jay, El-B and Zed Bias pushed it darker and sparser, and by 2002 labels like Big Apple and Tempa were calling records that sat apart from 2-step and grime "dubstep". FWD>> in Shoreditch and DMZ in Brixton gave the sound its clubs.
Read the issue (members)