Drum & Bass

Out of British jungle and breakbeat hardcore, drum & bass rests on a split: the drum breaks run at 174 BPM while the bassline plays at half that speed. Hence the feeling of being fast and heavy at once. The breakbeat that started it all, the "Amen break", is a six-second sample lifted from a 1969 soul record.

It is the one major electronic family born British and still British. From sound-system culture it kept the MC, who talks over the set, works the room and sits on the bill as much as the DJ, a night billed "DJ + MC" is not a programming accident.

Its branches run from melodic liquid to the darkest neurofunk, and its crowd is among the youngest in the scene. Long lived mostly in clubs, it is now a heavy presence at festivals, in the UK and on the continent alike.