Drum & Bass
Drum and Bass (also written as drum 'n' bass or drum & bass and commonly abbreviated to D&B, DnB or D'n'B) is a genre of electronic music emerged as a branch of British breakbeat and rave when musicians began to mix reggae bass with fast hip hop breakbeat.
Birth: 1994 Bloom: 1998
It`s impossible to talk about DnB without touching the history of jungle. In 1994 there wasn`t any obvious difference between them. Jungle as well as its closest relative hardcore during the 1990-94s was a part of British raves. Energetic and rapid music with a tempo between 160–180 BPM drove crazy almost all teens in Europe. Jungle was irreplaceable in clubs, but also boring without new ideas. Earliest jungle records have a lousy sound and the lack of sense like stupid and brutal gangsta rap.
During 1994 jungle became drum and bass. Goldie and his bros from the Metalheadz label were responsible for developing of the style. Almost every artist of this style contributed to the start of an independent drum and bass sub-genres, which nowadays are about 20. Goldie in 1995 released the album «Timeless» - the first successful commercially release in drum and bass.
So, if you want to find the first track in the drum and bass history you should find the first track in the history of jungle which has already got rhythmic structure similar to the present one. Jungle was a hardcore variation with an accent on breakbeat. Breakbeat roots in the early 80s in dj kool herc`s records, who just combined original drums from James Brown`s songs or The Winstons (the legendary track «Amen break»). Moreover, the term jungle is attributed to music by Duke Ellington (the `20-30s dissonant jazz). But the term drum and bass emerged in the mid-70s among reggae musicians.
But in 1993 when jungle was the main direction in British underground, producer and owner of the Good Lookin` label – DJ LTJ Bukem created his own conception of sound. Without paying attention to ravers` ironies and comparisons with heroes of pathos art-rock (like the band Yes!) he successfully created music of rapid and impulsive electronic with breakbeat, but soft and atmospheric sound. LTJ Bukem was the first who started to use sudden pauses; also he wanted to increase the level of production. It was he, not Goldie, who first managed to predict the future of the style. As a good example one of his first releases «Music» sounds pretty good today.
Deriative styles: Darkstep, Drill'n'bass, Drumfunk, Dubwise, Hardstep, Intelligent, Jazzstep, Jump Up, Liquid funk, Neurofunk, Ragga Jungle, Raggacore, Sambass, Techstep, Trancestep
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