Introducing Drum & Bass in Focus

Dance music fans may have noticed a significant increase in drum & bass, jungle, breaks, bass and dubstep on the festival circuit this summer. Artists previously known as house and techno loyalists have been slipping these genres into their sets, upping the energy, pounding the bass and setting the dance floor on fire.

To meet this moment in dance music history, we’re creating a new series that focuses on drum & bass and related genres. We’ll take an in depth look at its history, spotlight artists from its past and present and find out what we can expect from the genre in the future. We’ll interview DJs, producers, labels, magazine editors and promoters to get insight into D&B scenes around the world and understand how a genre straight from the UK’s anarchist underground has grown into a global dance floor phenomenon.

To kick things off, let’s take a quick (and very summarised) look at the roots of drum & bass, the artists that launched the scene and the new wave of young producers and DJs spearheading its resurgence.

The Roots of D&B

The internet will tell you that drum & bass was a product of the ‘90s UK rave scene, but we can go a lot further back than that. Its origins were a fusion of Black genres from the ‘70s and ‘80s, ranging from reggae, rare groove, hip-hop, funk, and soul to hardcore, acid house and Detroit techno. The UK’s free party movement (basically illegal parties next to motorways, under bridges and in fields) provided a platform for the sound to emerge.

Early D&B producers used sped up samples from reggae records. The most influential samples include the Amen break, Apache break and Funky Drummer break, and producers nabbed the drum breaks from James Brown’s 1969 track "Soul Pride” Dennis Coffey’s 1972 track “Scorpio" and Lyn Collins’ 1972 track "Think (About It)” to create the drum-heavy, wild-eyed genre we know today.

Early D&B Scenes

Not long after house and techno emerged from queer, Black culture Chicago and Detroit in the ‘80s, drum & bass and jungle began to flourish in London and Bristol. It was like acid house on crack, packed full of breakbeats, heavy bass, sub-bass lines, samples, and synthesizers. Goldie was a scene mainstay with his seminal 1992 track “Terminator” laying the blueprint for an explosion of D&B, including DJ DIE’s haunting track “Clear Skyz,” Nasty Habits’ “Shadow Boxing” and Source Direct’s “Black Rose.”

Ready and waiting to meet that moment was Rage, a club night launched in 1989 in London nightclub Heaven. Its two residents Fabio and Grooverider played sped up breaks, house dubs, hardcore and techno to meet the early sound of D&B and jungle head on. Rage became the beating heart of the era and a place for pioneering DJs including Goldie, Kemistry (who sadly passed away in 1999), Storm and Bailey to push the boundaries of the crowd with ever-escalating BPMs and endless energy.

All of this was mixed up with the rise of pirate radio, the emergence of one-off dub plates, the launch of labels like Metalheadz, Moving Shadow and Hospital Records and a new drug called ecstasy.

The Evolution of D&B

When the digital era arrived in the early 2000s, D&B culture was forced to change. The DJs that used to get booked for having one-off dub plates were suddenly competing with the internet, where files could be shared in a nano-second.

So in the early-mid 2000s, D&B spread around the world like wildfire. Producers from Brazil, Japan, Australia, Chile, started putting their own stamp on the genre and developing it further. It’s no secret that the OG D&B producers played their cards close to their chests to remain top dogs in the scene they created, but soon new producers started making waves big enough to rock the boat. Alix Perez, Breakage, Boredome, freeradical8, Mister Shifter and many others all developed their own unique sound and scenes.

In 2009 D&B broke into the mainstream with artists like Chase & Status' 'liquid' drum and bass entering the global charts with hits like "Against All Odds”. This converged with the rise of US dubstep, most often associated with Skrillex.

The New Era of D&B

You might have noticed these artists have one thing in common: they’re all male.

But today, that’s all changed.

We’re in a new era of D&B and jungle with Sherelle, Naina and Nia Archives at the helm. As women of color, they’re taking D&B back to its Black roots – tearing up the rule book and opening doors as they do it. Sherelle and Naina’s Hooversound Recordings is one of the pioneering new D&B labels, while TikTok has catapulted artists like Pink Pantheress, piri, and Vierre Cloud into the forefront of Gen Z’s psyche.

Some cite lockdown as the catalyst for the genre’s resurgence. Producers had the time to work on D&B projects and DJs had the time to listen. The frenetic, anarchist energy of the genre appealed to young kids locked up at home without access to clubs, and once they emerged Drum & Bass was officially back, baby.

Now mammoth artists like John Summit, David Guetta and Diplo are throwing drum & bass tunes into their sets, and the new wave of D&B producers have fully booked schedules for the foreseeable future.

So that is the (very) condensed story of how drum & bass returned to the forefront of dance music culture. In this series we’ll be documenting the many stories, journeys, ideas and scenes around the world that make the genre so timeless, while paying tribute to its past, present and future.