The term itself is connected with the origin of the name jungle. During the time of junglists, they were sometimes referred to as "rude bwoii", a slang term originally used by Jamaicans (as rude boy), meaning "gangsta" or "badbwoy" ("bad boy"). The term refers to an inner city area of West Kingston, Jamaica, called Jungle (the subject of the Bob Marley song "Concrete Jungle", from the Wailers album Catch a Fire). It’s been a consistent mainstay on both dancefloors and raver wardrobes since the mid 90s when designer and founder Leke Adesoye printed his first run of T’s for his crew. His mission was simple; to create garments for the burgeoning jungle community. Founded in Leke’s years of hip hop culture, the clothes a nod for those who know and an alternative to the standard Versace/Moschino style in London or the bright hippie baggies in the raves at the time. The iconic Technics-inspired design hit the spot and its message has remained relevant and virulent ever since; pushing the jungle cause well beyond the confines of the genre. Fans of the brand range from Groove Armada to model Bee Philips via D Double E, Joel Dommett, Ed Sheeran and Ghostface Killah. And that’s before we even consider its presence on the cult clubbing movie Human Traffic.

Green had been a hip-hop and happy hardcore fan. Increasingly he was getting into jungle. He viewed the club nights he attended as extensions of the house parties of his youth: front rooms cleared of all furniture, huge sound systems, alcohol served in plastic cups, dim lighting, lots of motion. He found jungle intimate and immersive – a sometimes demonised music to which young kids, in darkened spaces the size of chill-out zones, were still figuring out how to dance. It was a music that was impossibly accelerationist. Its rhythms thrillingly alien. Its darkness radiant. While the genre was booming in the mainstream charts, the underground side, which had formed the foundations of the sound, kept experimenting with darker, grittier, and more menacing soundscapes and started testing these out in their DJ sets. The morphing continued and producers moved away from the ambient and textured soundscapes to a crispier and refined sound. Exactly. We push the music from a cultural point of view and play a big part in the movement. I do feel that gets overlooked a lot. I’ll give you an example; some very big artists have used my logo and own my brand in their content to get stripes, but not reached out to me and worked with me. That’s a culture vulture move. I might not be on the frontline but my work is out there and I’ve been here in the game for 20 years, just reach out to the originators and work with us positively.Whenever we are talking about the evolution of Drum & Bass, there is one common reference that you will most certainly stumble upon, that it was oddly referred to as the b*astard child of Dance Music. From its emergence in the English rave scene in the early 90’s, Drum & Bass has evolved and stood as one of the most energetic and influential genres in electronic music. Terminator’ was the first time that the timestretching technique had been used on the breaks, an effect that allowed you to alter tempo of a sample without changing the pitch. The effect was like an experiment with the temporal flow of music, as sonic futures became historical loops. Time itself simultaneously collapsing in and building out. ‘Terminator’ proved to be a key signpost in the emergence of the cyber driven ideologies of drum & bass tech, while also providing a jaw-dropping dancefloor moment. Green and Otchere decided on a simple narrative arc: a long weekend, Friday through to Monday morning, in the lives of four south Londoners – Meth, Q, Biggie and Craig – who they based on themselves and their mates. It’s often hard to tell them apart, their voices and personalities melting into a polyphonic mix, a scattershot and bantz-heavy flow of the kind that might be heard on a pirate station. They have minor run-ins with the police as they drive across town in Q’s mum’s Cortina, but this isn’t a protest or a journalistic novel; it’s more interested in inner space than in sociological space, the psychology of urban life as it’s modulated by beats and weed. Conquering Lion was better known as Michael West, aka Rebel MC who’d had chart success with the commercial sound of hip-house. This ragga breakbeat mash-up couldn’t have been further from the mainstream. Like Remarc’s ‘RIP’ this tune samples Saxon Sound and King Addies’ ‘Saxon Vs. Addies Soundclash’ in Bermuda, 1994, but to much darker effect. For West, junglism was far more than a scene, he viewed it as an expression of militancy and subsequently used his profile to raise awareness of the socio-political drive inherent in the music. ‘Code Red’ was a high-octane warning of Junglism’s oppositional fury. The essence of Metalheadz Sunday Sessions at the Blue Note, this tune melted warm sub-bass, soulful female vocals and a repeated horn refrain from Coolio’s ‘Can-O-Corn’ over stripped down, Detroit-flavoured breaks. It was the tune that really introduced 2-step into the scene, a beat that subsequently dominated the highly technical neurofunk sound as well as UK garage.

Tek 9 was an occasional solo project from 4Hero’s Dego McFarlane that fused ragga with hip hop to create an instantly recognisable drum&bass sound. His remake of Code 071’s ‘A London Sumtin’ brought the ragga b-line to the fore. Stretching the ‘Feelin’ It’ break from one of rave’s favoured sample sources, the Ultramagnetic MCs’ Critical Beatdown, Tek 9’s remix twists the original’s hardcore thrust into a twisting darkcore meets proto-jungle horror movie. In more recent times he’s designed unique drops with Hospital Records for last year’s Hospitality In The Park, he’s collaborated with the exercise phenomenon that is Flight Klub and has partnered with Human Traffic Live with a new collection exclusive to the forthcoming Lost Weekend event at Printworks in May. Since the release of ‘”We Are I.E.”, sounds kept blurring and artists started finding their own niche in Jungle. Some artists preferred softer, ambient, and textured melodies while some preferred darker and heavier sounds which could create maximum sonic impact. Jungle music also became a way of expression for London’s streetwise and marginalized youth. They saw Jungle as “England’s answer to hip-hop”, by merging the Jamaican reggae scene with then 4-to-the-floor basslines and erasing racial boundaries by advocating unification of people from different walk of life through its multiculturalism. Perfect example. He’s family. I’ve been sponsoring him since he was 17 years old. Before Intrgue or any of that. I heard a tune of his on Defunked and went to Bristol for a meeting. Now Intrigue is the longest running night in Bristol. That’s a good example of us spotting someone who’s still going to be smashing and influential 10, 20 years later.

Recommendations

I lost every booking I’d ever worked for. When the police came to my house they said, ‘so, you’re the DJ everyone hates’. I had no idea the guy had been stabbed but people didn’t believe me,” she told me in 1996. Nonetheless, ‘Mr. Kirk’s Nightmare’ is a pivotal tune in the development of the darkcore scene. Even for electronic artists less directly linked to the genre, the influence of OG Jungle on this decade’s hitmakers cannot be underestimated. Shy One is a DJ and producer known for eclectic and diverse sets, but she tells me that “being from a raving family”, she recognises the “honour” of sharing a stage with”legendary pioneers of electronic music like Goldie and A Guy Called Gerald”. Speaking to Notion recently, electronic duo Chase & Status describe a career defining moment, “accidentally stumbling” on “one of the many pirate radio stations blasting out Hardcore Jungle” and being inspired to buy an album at random. The record in question, ‘Grooverider – Hardstep Collection 1’. Alongside Fabio, DJ Grooverider is on the bill for Outlook festival this year, as well as Hospitality in the Woods.