Critically discuss in detail the rise and fall and (if applicable) legacy of one youth culture and its musical association - Drum and Bass, Jungle.
Media Business and Culture
‘‘Listen to what we’ve found sound from deep down underground, let the speakers boom, speakers pound and the sound will take us forward bound.’’ – MC Conrad, on LTJ Bukeum's Logical progression
Critically discuss in detail the rise and fall and (if applicable) legacy of one youth culture and its musical association.
Youth culture: Junglists.
Musical association: Drum and Bass, Jungle.
JUNGLIST (jun*gul*list) n. 1) A male or female who regularly listens to drum & bass/ jungle music. Junglists are also very aware of breakbeat culture practicing most traditions in & around breakbeat & hip- hop culture (i.e. graffiti, breaking, mc'ing, dj'ing).
Junglists are very bias towards Jungle/drum & bass. < Source Urbandictionary.com>
The above definition is a crude outline of just what a Junglist is but it does mention two crucial elements the bias or elitism for the music and the importance of the breakbeat not just for its aural qualities but for its symbolism as well, the average age of a junglist ranges from 16 to 30 and unlike most forms of music it seems to have broken down the colour barrier having a fairly even distribution racial representation at drum and bass events. Properly defining Junglists as a youth music culture is virtually impossible without first defining an array of other youth cultures from jazz to hip-hop. Choosing to (much like the music itself) sample the ‘best bits’ from a variety of other previous music cultures. Jungle and Junglists can be seen as a good example of a sub-culture built on post-modern aesthetics.
The music itself has however never truly broken out into the popular mainstream or even the underground dance scene, conversely it has had numerous ‘false deaths’ but throughout has stayed constant with a solid group of supporters.
Firstly, it is crucial to understand the birth of Jungle both as a genre and as a youth culture with a deep respect and acknowledgement of its influences. Understanding the struggle to find its identity within the dance and mainstream market, looking at the non-existent ‘rise of drum and bass’. Finally the fall or future of drum and bass culture how does a youth culture with such a diverse identity survive.
Birth (late 80’s - early 90’s), The birth of Jungle lies in the breakbeat, the breakbeat is basically a drum break found in jazz, blues and funk records that is extended and serves as the building block for Hip-hop and Drum and Bass production. Particularly the near mythical break known as the ‘amen’ (see fig 1.) the name amen is derived from the track ‘Amen my brother’ by the Winstons a 1969 funk song (audio track 01). “Jungle paints a sound picture of social disintegration and instability. But the anxiety in the music is mastered and transformed into a kind of nonchalance; the disruptive breakbeats are looped in a rolling flow” (Reynolds, 1998, p.252). This social disintegration can be attributed to two factors the first is the purposeful disassociation of the emerging Junglist community from the dance and trance crowd, but also “the state of the nation in 1993. The recession had hit Britain hard, and inner-city youth faced unemployment and a welfare system that had been systematically dismantled by the Conservative government during its fourteen years of one-party tyranny” (Reynolds, 1998, p.260). So while its sister culture was enjoying chemical filled escapism the hardcore and later jungle crowd was experimenting with a more accurate reflection of its surroundings.
“Breakbeats have an aura of villainy. Plundered from aging slices of funk and rare groove, lifted and looped from quasi-legal breaks and beats compilations they are of uncertain ownership a delicious grey area.” (Shapiro, 2000, p. 136) This exemplifies the post-modernist with a twist mindset of the drum and bass crowd. Drum and Bass’s innovation lies in its speed both in beats per minute and the cut and paste aesthetics of track construction. Jamaican Dub and Dancehall, American Jazz and Hip-Hop, and UK Dance and Techno are the main influences that shaped drum and bass both Aurally and Culturally.
Genrefication
Jungles influences are paradoxically both its strongest and weakest attribute. Dub, Dancehall, Hip-hop, Electronica, Techno, Jazz and Blues are some of the most obvious influences on the music and the drum and bass community. Though this range of influence provides for a great diversity the genres innovation is often overshadowed by genrefication From earlier sub-genres such as Ragga-Jungle, with heavy Jamaican Influence (see track 02. Junglist by Congo Natty) to Jazzstep a style of Jazz influenced drum and bass popularised by Roni Size and Reprazent’s pivotal Mercury Award Winning New Forms Album (track 03 Brown Paper Bag.) Elements of Techno are kept alive in jungle by sub-genres such as Hardstep, which usually involves “deep grinding basslines and minimal or simple breakbeats” (). A recent example of hardstep is Dillinja’s “Grimey” (see CD track 04). Darkstep or darkside usually has very dramatic basslines and often takes samples from horror movies or news reports giving word of some sort of disaster, such as Blue Sonix’s “Devil Inside” (Track 05). Styles of Drum and Bass are constantly emerging from the recent success of tracks such as Mindmachine’s ‘Barcelona’ (Track 06) and Brazillian DJ Marky’s chart entering ‘LK’ South American sounds are the latest adoption of drum and bass culture.
