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Information on the Jungle Genre

Oldschool Jungle is the name given to a style of electronic music that incorporates influences from genres including breakbeat hardcore, techno, and reggae/dub/dancehall. There is significant debate as to whether Jungle is a separate genre from Drum and Bass as some use the terms interchangeably. Drum and Bass started to separate musically from Jungle in the mid to late 1990s, in which there is a fuzzy period where it is harder to distinguish the difference between the two genres. There is much politics attached to labelling different tracks as a specific genre.

In the summer of 1992, a Thursday night club in London called "Rage" was changing in response to the commercialization of the rave scene (see breakbeat hardcore). Resident DJs Fabio and Grooverider; amongst others, began to take the Hardcore sound to a new level. The speed of the music increased from 120bpm to 145bpm, whilst more ragga and dancehall elements were brought in and techno, disco and house influences were decreased.

Eventually the music became too fast and difficult to be mixed with more traditional rave music, creating a division with the other popular electronic genres. When it lost the four-on-the-floor beat, and created percussive elements solely from raw, 'chopped up' breakbeats, the old-skool ravers would complain that it had "gone all jungle-techno".

The club 'Rage' finally shut its doors in 1993, but the new legion of "Junglists" had evolved, changing dancing styles for the faster music, enjoying the off-beat rhythms and with less reliance on the chemical stimulation of the rave era.


Subgenres of Jungle include:

* Darkcore; instrumental jungle with a dark and more minimal focus (1993-today),
* Hardcore Jungle; a subgenre which has a large influence from the early 1990s Rave scene. Typically, melodic stabs and pitched up vocals feature heavily (1993-1995).
* Intelligent jungle; a more ambient sound, focusing on mood, synthesis and production methods (1993-today).
* Indian jungle (a fusion of ragga jungle drum and bass and indian drums/sounds)1993-1995.
* Ragga Jungle; more Jamaican-Reggae influenced styles and lyrics (circa 1990-today), which often features an MC who recites dancehall-style lyrics

The fast tempos (150 to 170 bpm) breakbeats, other heavily syncopated percussive loops, samples and synthesized effects makes up the easily recognizable form of Jungle. Producers create the drum patterns featured; sometimes completely off-beat, by cutting apart breakbeats most notably the Amen break. Long, computer generated pitch shifted snare rolls are also common in Oldschool jungle.

Jungle producers incorporated classic Jamaican/Caribbean sound-system culture production-methods. The slower, deep basslines and simple melodies (which are directly descended from dub, reggae and dancehall) accentuated the overall production and hence gave Jungle its 'rolling' quality.


Jungle today

Today the term "Jungle" is mostly used as a synonym for Drum and Bass (See Jungle vs. drum and bass). There is a dissenting viewpoint which asserts that Jungle exists distinctive to Drum & Bass, despite the progressive changes brought by the interpretations of emerging artists throughout the late 90s, (some examples being Reprazent, Ed Rush, LTJ Bukem, Potential Bad Boy, Digital, Total Science, Goldie and Optical).

There is certainly a thriving underground movement producing and developing tracks in the style of a decade ago and some original (though currently mainstream drum & bass) jungle producers have noticed this new enthusiasm for the original sound. The North American ragga-jungle revival in 2001 saw many new names emerge to carry the torch. Krinjah, RCola and Chopstick Dubplate pushed things forward with junglized refixes of classic reggae tunes often produced with re-voicings done by the original singers.

Shy FX, creator of "Original Nuttah" with UK Apache, has recently launched the Digital Sound Boy label, and Canadian imprint JungleXpeditions features songs with the structure and production values of modern drum & bass but with ragga vocals and multiple reggae and oldskool elements from an international roster of newschool producers. It should be noted that ragga vocals and oldskool elements have always featured in the works of drum & bass producers and labels, particularly True Playaz and the last three years has seen a resurgence of vocalized productions.

There is also been an eastern eurpean, jungle orientated, underground movement with clotheing fashions similar to the UK's 90s Rave scene. Most notably countries such as Bulgaria are beginning an oldskool jungle revival.