The Origins of Jungle/Drum and bass ?

D

Dreamworld

New Member
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Mar 13, 2005
I remember a long time ago, a car with blacked out windows would drive past bass box booming and thats all I heard of Jungle. As far as I was aware it was listened to by mainly Black guys and Gangsters/Scallies.
Then the NME got hold of it and called it drum and bass and it got huge.
So what where the origins of Drum and bass ? Did it as so many say come out of Harcore ?
Where the original breakbeats double speeded up hip hop and funk rhytms.
I dont want to start a storm over this but they say Elvis and Rock and roll was white music which stole from black music - the Blues. Has the same happened with jungle or was it always multiracial music ? Im no expert but my memory says otherwise.
Yours respectfully,
DW
 
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I don't think it had anything to do with NME making it big ??
Never heard that one before :)

As far as i know, its always been multiracial music as it originated from hardcore/rave music. it had/s lots of reggae influences.
 
androoo said:
I don't think it had anything to do with NME making it big ??
Never heard that one before :)

As far as i know, its always been multiracial music as it originated from hardcore/rave music. it had/s lots of reggae influences.
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bang on!!!!!!
 
if your interested in the history of rave music, there are a few good books out. they talk about how the scene fragments too... one i've read and can reccomend -

Class of '88
 
androoo said:
I don't think it had anything to do with NME making it big ??
Never heard that one before :)

As far as i know, its always been multiracial music as it originated from hardcore/rave music. it had/s lots of reggae influences.
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came from a mix of the acid house bought over from detroit and ragga/reggea. so the mix of black n white has always been there
 
H20 said:
came from a mix of the acid house bought over from detroit and ragga/reggea. so the mix of black n white has always been there
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missed that bit yeah, before the hardcore there was acid house :) :gpeace:
 
Cheers for the replies - v. informative
To clarify on the NME thing. One day it was underground and called jungle (1994). Within a year it was called drum and bass and was in all the music papers hyped up to hell. If my memory serves me well, but then I dont remember those times to clearly hehehe ;)
 
hmm yeah, the term 'drum & bass' was really coined by the music press coz they'd slagged off jungle so badly and the music was becoming massive, so they thought they'd better re-package it rather than admit they were wrong
 
As is mentioned by BBF in 'All Crews', I recall almost the exact week most people in Perth started calling it 'drum'n'bass', around April 1995.
As well as the ignorance around race, there was also bias against the old hardocre ravers with their bright colours etc, dNb was more 'serious'. Don't you know.
 
mesh said:
As is mentioned by BBF in 'All Crews', I recall almost the exact week most people in Perth started calling it 'drum'n'bass', around April 1995.
As well as the ignorance around race, there was also bias against the old hardocre ravers with their bright colours etc, dNb was more 'serious'. Don't you know.
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i remember being a very confused teenager trying to work out what the difference was :O
 
I remember MC Conrad using the words Drum & Bass
to introduce LTJ Bukems sets as early as 1992...

I also still believe that Bukem was the 1st Jock to play a full on out & out Drum & Bass set (not Grooverider as
some peeps used to say back in the day)
By this i mean a set without a 4/4 kick,high piched
vocal/ piano breaks etc...

magazines such as DJ,MIXMAG,NME etc didnt wanna
know Jungle/D&B at all throughout these yrs. But u had all other genre Reviews i.e hse/techno/hip hop but absolutly no Jungle/Drum n Bass until roughly late 1995 ...

Talk about jumping on the Bandwagon !! :jerkit:
 
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Drum n Bass Terminology & Classification (2003)

@ taken from former site dnbproduction.net
@ also see #dnbproduction (EFNet)

01. Jungle

the popular Rave culture, but didn't begin to form a separate identity until approximately 1992, where influence began to take shape from various music genres such as hip hop. Characterized by chopped up breaks, the tempo steadily rose over the years before settling at around 170 - 180 bpm in 1995. Further evolution in music has meant that jungle is now considered separate from drum n bass by some people.

02. Drum n Bass

Evolved from Jungle from approximately 1995 onwards. As the tempo of Jungle began to settle, people looked for more ways to evolve the music, resulting in a change of sound. The result is a more polished, sparser feel. Breaks lack the frantic rhythms of a few years ago but have a stripped down, raw edge to them. With the simplification of the rhythms, bass became paramount as the source of innovation, leading to the coining of the descriptive term "drum n bass" which has evolved into the main terminology for fast breaks based music.

03. Hardstep

A term made popular by the compilation of the same name by popular DJ Grooverider. Describes a sub-genre which rely's on stripped down, hard breaks with a "stepping", rhythmic quality.

04. Tech-Step

A further sub-division of the above, which has has the most impact in recent years. Drum n Bass began to take on influences from industrial techno, including sounds and drum patterns, with stripped down rhythms. Totally blew up with the likes of Ed Rush and Nico on No U-Turn Recordings in 1997 upwards. Recent years have seen this style further evolve with bass-line complexity and dark sounds, giving the term Tech-Step a new meaning. The meaning of this term has evolved almost identically to the music of Ed-Rush.

05. Dark

A term disputed by some, this describes music with an eerie, spooky feel and sound. Probably became popular originally as a method of escaping the frantic happy sounds of hardcore which drum and bass was evolving away from.

06. Jump-Up

A knee-jerk reaction term to describe drum and bass which was defying the dark sounds popular in drum n bass from 1997 upwards. This music blew up with the likes of Shy-FX and DJ Hype using simplistic bouncy basslines, however began to loose credibility when some producers began releasing basslines resembling children's TV program theme tunes. Forced a new "dark" push in drum n bass.

07. Intelligent

Possibly the biggest sub-genre of drum and bass, this describes music more about creating a feel and setting the scene, then making people dance. This music relies heavily on complex pads and synths, using sparse sub-bass (sine wav) basslines. Drum rhythms are generally more complex then most drum and bass and still have a cut-up break quality about them. Most popular artists include LTJ Bukem and his GLR/LGR record labels.

08. Jazz-Step

Not a common drum and bass term (more of an influence). Used to describe music mainly pushed by DJ Fabio - using the hard-step sounds of Grooverider overlaid with jazzy instruments such as saxophone. Stayed very popular from 1997(ish) until present day.

09. Ragga

A very common influence in drum and bass in 1994 which seemed was going to be the main feel for years to come, until pop-star General Levy released the tune "Incredible". This, coupled with several shootings (associated with the gun-shot sounds in several tunes) meant an inevitable change of sound. This particular sound remains popular and seems to run in short cycles becoming popular again every few years.

10. 2-Step

Coined after the change in drum n bass to simplified, "stepping" breaks. Originally described the drum pattern, it now has a meaning of it's own, and is itself a sub-genre of Garage.
_________________
tehshoe
shoebox at dnbradio dot com
 
chamberz said:
I remember MC Conrad using the words Drum & Bass
to introduce LTJ Bukems sets as early as 1992...
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Absolutely Chamberz, I remember it being used as an MC descriptive term, like an adjective, way before the music as a whole took on the label. Just like 'jungle' partly came from people and MCs calling it 'jungle techno'.

But the first time I heard it used in general conversation was "whats the matter, don't you dig the drum'n'bass?' That was in 1995.
I started using it almost straight away instead of 'jungle', because people looked at you fuckin sideways when you mentioned jungle. Seriously, it was a disdained form of music by many so-called ravers. Drum'n'bass just sounded like a more sophistumacated term, and the haters didn't understand what it meant which was a bonus.
When I think back on this it seems like now I could instead have reacted like some others, who refused to stop calling it jungle, just because. Not sure with hindsight ....
I'm glad the term jungle is still used, but I do hate it when people get hung up on whether its actually a distinct style of music from dNb cos I don't see it that way.


:who_wants
 
mesh said:
Absolutely Chamberz, I remember it being used as an MC descriptive term, like an adjective, way before the music as a whole took on the label. Just like 'jungle' partly came from people and MCs calling it 'jungle techno'.

But the first time I heard it used in general conversation was "whats the matter, don't you dig the drum'n'bass?' That was in 1995.
I started using it almost straight away instead of 'jungle', because people looked at you fuckin sideways when you mentioned jungle. Seriously, it was a disdained form of music by many so-called ravers. Drum'n'bass just sounded like a more sophistumacated term, and the haters didn't understand what it meant which was a bonus.
When I think back on this it seems like now I could instead have reacted like some others, who refused to stop calling it jungle, just because. Not sure with hindsight ....
I'm glad the term jungle is still used, but I do hate it when people get hung up on whether its actually a distinct style of music from dNb cos I don't see it that way.


:who_wants
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Totally agree mate
 
So what about hip hop ? When was the first time somebody actually sped up a breakbeat and wacked it on an acid house tune ?
When I was at school I remember def jam recordings and Robbase (1989/1988ish) , I was wondering if it was a natural progression from that stuff ?
 
straight outta compton by nwa has an amen sample in it. put my tape recorder on high speed dub and it sounded like early jungle (y)
 
chamberz said:
I remember MC Conrad using the words Drum & Bass
to introduce LTJ Bukems sets as early as 1992...
Click to expand...

Yep the term has been around for as long as jungle has, that's why it's such a crock of shit that people say drum & bass and jungle are two different types of music beacuse back in the day they meant exactly the same thing.
 
I'm almost certain that NWA used the infamous break from the winston's "amen brotha" in Straight Outta Compton.

Not sure about when the first time a hip hop record was played at 45rpm, but I know there was an old Ice-T record (forgot what the name of the track was) that a lot of acid house dj's in the late 80's were arbitrarily playing on 45 because it blended quite nicely with the rest of the set. Legend has it some dj dropped it in at 45 by accident and the crowd felt it, so other dj's followed suit.

When the rave/hardcore/breakcore sound emerged in 91-92 I know dj's like Hype, LTJ and Ratty at the time would often drop house records played at 45rpm instead of 33 as well.

I'm guessing one of the first tracks people would nowadays still associate with dnb even 4-5 years before the term was coined was Mr. Kirks Nightmare. Definite big-ups to Reinforced....their label has been around since day one and are still releasing quality tunes to this day.
 
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