This week we’re celebrating one of the UK’s best homegrown genres with 6 Music Does Drum & Bass Day, marking 25 years of Metalheadz, the hugely influential D ‘n’ B label founded by Kemistry & Storm and Goldie.
All this week, Steve Lamacq has been counting down his Drum & Bass World Cup, with the final two contenders battling it out on his show this Friday 7 June, from 4pm.
Meanwhile, from 10.30am, Mary Anne Hobbs will delve into the roots and shoots of Drum & Bass with a soundtrack built from the sounds and scenes that influenced the genre. She will also be joined by Metalheadz label head DJ Storm and Rupture promoter DJ Mantra to offer a first-hand history of the era.
Elsewhere, Drum & Bass legend DJ Zinc takes us to his Desert Island Disco on Lauren Laverne from 7.30am, while Nemone will be joined by Metalheadz associate Om Unit and legendary producer Ray Keith while airing a classic archive mix from Goldie from 12 midnight.
There will also be a selection of cherished D ‘n’ B tunes on Chris Hawkins (from 5am), a special Drum & Bass mix from Tom Ravenscroft (from 9pm), plus a tour of Amsterdam’s Drum & Bass clubs from our “Dutch DJ friends” Dirk and Jurgen on Shaun Keaveny from 1pm.
To get in the mood for 6 Music Does Drum & Bass Day, here’s a look at some of the essential tracks from the genre, as recommended by 6 Music’s DJs.
Goldie’s Inner City Life is widely regarded as one of the genre’s most seminal tracks and Nemone says that it’s for good reason.
“Metalheadz and Goldie produced a sound that was passionate, a complete expression of a disenfranchised youth to the masses in a digestible elegant form. D ‘n’ B, jungle, hardcore was a visceral response to the clamping down on rave culture at the time.”
For Nemone personally, Inner City Life was “life changing”. She recalls: “My best friend Sophie sent it on tape. I distinctly remember putting in the the cassette player and wondering if it had corrupted in transit. The series of broken beats blew my mind. I hadn’t heard anything like it – the beat pattern, the blend of rhythms, the soulfulness. It’s timeless in sound and sentiment.”
6 Music’s Shaun Keaveny might not have such halcyon-tinged memories of D ‘n’ B, but that hasn’t stopped one of the genre’s seminal tracks staying with him ever since its release back in 1994.
“I spent much of the 90s, not in super clubs, down the front at the Dublin Castle or in a field in Sussex. I spent most of it in the pub,” Shaun explains. “Despite this, Inner City Life still managed to permeate this enclave of British normalcy.”
“Dub bass, breakbeat skittering D ‘n’ B rhythms and that haunting soul voice from the late, great Diane Charlemagne made it a total jukebox winner.”
Chris Hawkins’ standout D ‘n’ B anthem also takes him back to a specific time and place – and he too can recall the very first time he heard Omni Trio’s Renegade Snares.
“When you hear something phenomenal for the first time in a crowded North Wales field, it sort of makes an impact,” Chris says. “Following clues for signs through barely defined hillsides, the destination was, well, somewhere in North Wales at a time when rave had pitched up.”
“Omni Trio’s Renegade Snares smashed the transition from house to Drum & Bass with its stunning breaks and euphoric vocal sample of Soundsource’s Take Me Up to become a genre-defining sound by Sheffield’s electro messiah, Rob Haigh.”
Brown Paper Bag, the third single from Roni Size and D ‘n’ B collective Reprazent’s 1997 Mercury Prize-winning album New Forms, may have been a track that, by Size’s own admission, “split the Drum & Bass scene right down the middle” due to its genre-blurring and incorporation of jazz and hip-hop influences.
But to Mary Anne Hobbs, this is what made the track all the more remarkable. Mary Anne describes Brown Paper Bag as a “masterful” track, one that “still sounds as fresh and agile as it did when Roni dropped it 22 years ago”.
She also credits Size as “completely re-imagining the Drum & Bass live performance with Reprazent”.
The emergence of Drum & Bass can be traced back to the jungle scene of the early 90s and one figure that firmly occupied both movements is Shy FX, who – along with UK Apachi – was responsible for one of the first crossover hits from the era, Original Nuttah.
“It is essentially bonkers,” Tom Ravenscroft says of the track. “There’s not really any other tune like it. When it breaks, it’s one of the best pieces of pure 170 BPM… It’s the only record I know all the words to… Pull up forever!”
While Shy FX’s cultural impact has been noted, Tom thinks that the brilliance of UK Apachi is often understated. “UK Apachi brings such a unique perspective to the record,” he says. “An unsung hero.”
