how much did brit core/late 80s UK hip hop impact on jungle and drum n bass?

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cos i always read a lot of dance people on this board and famous dance critics laying into UK hip hop as if its some unwanted bastard child to poke fun at but didnt a lot of jungle producers and MCs come from uk hip hop? when they decided it wasnt for them anymore, they tried to do something different with it - like jungle. shut up and dance - they were hip hop heads originally. most of those guys were hip hop fans originally. people always dis uk hip hop but they did some interesting stuff, people like hijack and that whole hardcore britcore sound. i know some people might say it was copying the bomb squad but it had its own style too.

titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Thursday, 28 October 2004 10:35 (twenty-one years ago)

i'd suggest it had the same impact that jungle/d&b did on 2step and grime in turn

Freelance Hiveminder (blueski), Thursday, 28 October 2004 10:39 (twenty-one years ago)

yet probably not as much as acid house, thinking of the continuum idea. there's obvious crossover between Uk hip hop and jungle from that time tho e.g. Ragga Twins, Smith & Mighty

Freelance Hiveminder (blueski), Thursday, 28 October 2004 10:41 (twenty-one years ago)

forget that continuum idea, i mean, not everything is gonna fit in there so neatly. this idea that all the jungle fans all just got into 2 step later is weird. i know lots of people that hated 2step when it started but liked drum n bass.

titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Thursday, 28 October 2004 10:44 (twenty-one years ago)

that's not the suggestion tho - to me it's just that given that d&b was arguably the most interesting and exciting genre sonically in dance music at the time (mid 90s) producers were keen on sourcing ideas from that and inserting them into alternate contexts i.e. the genres they preferred because they weren't ultimately down with jump up etc. (tho a lot of producers and fans were)

Freelance Hiveminder (blueski), Thursday, 28 October 2004 10:49 (twenty-one years ago)

to be honest these questions are a bit annoying (and my answers probably are too) because a) surely the connections are obvious just by listening? - and b) what is the importance of making these connections anyway? i'm not sure about the latter, but i find it easy enough to see the links

people always dis uk hip hop

who though?

Freelance Hiveminder (blueski), Thursday, 28 October 2004 10:54 (twenty-one years ago)

come on, everyone does!

titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Thursday, 28 October 2004 10:56 (twenty-one years ago)

the connections might be obvious, but i think ukhh's importance to jungle is kinda undermined by people like simon reynolds and people like that. its always seen only as imitation, never as original. if london posse werent original i dont know who was. i just read some of Sr's book and he said jungle was the real uk hip hop or the 'equivelant' not 'imitation', which i thought was a bit silly. cos now theyre saying the same thing about grime.

titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Thursday, 28 October 2004 10:58 (twenty-one years ago)

UKHH acts undeniably and naturally influenced by US artists tho - difficult for them to escape accusations of copying no matter what they did. i agree a lot of it was great and had it's own style in part but it was too hardcore for commercial success here - commercial inroads were made by some (as with jungle and grime/garage if you include people like Dizzee) but none of these things are the equivalent of the US hip-hop empire and they never could be.

Freelance Hiveminder (blueski), Thursday, 28 October 2004 11:03 (twenty-one years ago)

i agree with what youre saying, but i dont get how noone is noticing just how influenced grime artists are by the dirty south people. or maybe im not listening properly and am hearing it from too much of a hip hop POV...

titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Thursday, 28 October 2004 11:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm not aware that many Jungle producers or MCs were really very deeply involved in the UK hip hop scene. Congo Natty obv was Rebel MC, but even that was already a hip-house hybrid. And DJ Hype was a DMC turntable champion, but he was def involved in hardcore very early. And when you say that these guys were "hip hop fans" first, but I'm guessing they were probably fans of American hip hop. And soundsystem culture and idea of hip-hop as but one of a bunch of interconnected imports (house, dancehall, r&b) was probably the most influential idea that SUAD (as a label or an act) had.

Also JUNGLISTS said that JUNGLE was the UK's version of HIP-HOP (not just Reynolds)! They thought about what they were creating in those terms, as the UK answer to hip-hop and dancehall. And American hip-hop and dancehall's endurance (both twenty plus years and going strong) is what makes it possible for both grime and jungle to have been UK versions of it.

Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:13 (twenty-one years ago)


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