Jungle music

Jungle is a genre of electronic music that developed in the 1990s out of the UK rave scene and Jamaican sound system culture. Emerging from breakbeat hardcore, the style is characterised by rapid breakbeats, heavily syncopated percussive loops, samples and synthesised effects, combined with the deep basslines, melodies and vocal samples found in dub, reggae and dancehall, as well as hip-hop and funk. Many producers frequently sampled the "Amen break" or other breakbeats from funk and jazz recordings. Jungle was a direct precursor to the drum and bass genre which emerged in the mid-1990s.

The breakbeat hardcore scene of the early 1990s was beginning to fragment by 1992 and 1993, with different influences becoming less common together in tracks. The piano and uplifting vocal style that was prevalent in breakbeat hardcore started to lay down the foundations of 4-beat/happy hardcore, whilst tracks with dark-themed samples and industrial-style stabs had emerged from late 1992 and named darkcore. Reggae samples and reggae-influenced tracks had been a feature of many breakbeat hardcore tracks since 1990, particularly from producers such as Shut Up and Dance; however, Ibiza Records and the Rebel MC were arguably the first to bring the sound system influence solidly into releases. The track "We Are I.E." by Lennie De Ice is often credited as being the track that laid down the foundations for jungle with its ragga bassline.

During 1992 and 1993, the terms "jungle techno" and "hardcore jungle" proliferated to describe that shift of the music from breakbeat hardcore to jungle. The sound was championed at clubs such as AWOL, Roast and Telepathy, by DJs such as DJ Ron, DJ Hype, DJ Randall, Mickey Finn, DJ Rap and Kenny Ken, record labels Moving Shadow, V Recordings, Suburban Base and Renk, and on pirate radio stations such as Kool FM (regarded as being the most instrumental station in the development of jungle) but also Don FM, Rush and Rude FM.

Tracks would span breakbeat styles, with notable releases including "Darkage" by DJ Solo, "Valley of the Shadows" by Origin Unknown, "Set Me Free" by Potential Bad Boy, "28 Gun Bad Boy" by A Guy Called Gerald, "Crackman" by DJ Ron, "A London Sumtin" by Code 071, "Learning from My Brother" by Family of Intelligence, "Lion of Judah" by X Project, and "Be Free" by Noise Factory.

Techniques and styles could be traced to such a vast group of influencers, each adding their own little elements. According to Simon Reynolds, jungle was "Britain's very own equivalent to US hip-hop. That said, you could equally make the case that jungle is a raved-up, digitised offshoot of Jamaican reggae. Musically, jungle's spatialised production, bass quake pressure and battery of extreme sonic effects, make it a sort of postmodern dub music on steroids." This is an example of the effects of the sonic diaspora and the wide influence musical genres have; Jungle is where these different Black Atlantic genres converge. Reynolds noted the audience of the genre evolved alongside the music itself; going from a "sweaty, shirtless white teenager, grinning and gurning" to a "head nodding, stylishly dressed black twenty-something with hooded eyes, holding a spliff in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other". Jungle also served as "a site for a battle between contesting notions of blackness".

Jungle reached the peak of its popularity between 1994 and 1995. At this stage, the genre was achieving a number of UK top 40 hits, including "Incredible" by M-Beat featuring General Levy, and spawned a series of CD compilations such as Jungle Mania and Jungle Hits. Controversy raged over the success of "Incredible" when Levy reportedly made comments in the media that he was "running jungle at the moment". Although Levy always argued that his comments were misinterpreted, this did not fail to stop a boycott of the single amongst a group of DJs that were dubbed as the "Jungle Committee". Labels such as Ibiza, 3rd Party and Kemet were prolific in their releases.

Having previously been confined to pirate radio, legal stations woke up to jungle from 1994. London's Kiss 100 launched its Givin' It Up show in early 1994 and featured DJs on rotation including Kenny Ken Jumpin Jack Frost, DJ Randall, DJ Rap and Mickey Finn. A year later, the UK's nationwide broadcaster BBC Radio 1 finally gave jungle a platform on its One in the Jungle weekly show.

Major labels such as Sony and BMG were signing deals with artists including A Guy Called Gerald, Kemet and DJ Ron. Of these, Roni Size and 4hero would achieve wider commercial success as drum and bass artists, but continued to release more underground jungle tracks—the latter adopting the alias Tom & Jerry to continue to release rare groove sampling dancefloor-oriented jungle. The underground classic "Burial" by Leviticus would see a major release on FFRR Records.