Jamaican Roots to the UK & Beyond: An Auditory Journey Through Sound System Culture
Throughout this journey we will be looking at the discourse of Sound System Culture through a documentary lens, starting at its early roots in Jamaica and traveling to the UK and beyond. Discourse has been defined by James Paul Gee as “a socially accepted association among ways of using language, of thinking, and of acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or “social network” (1). If there is one to thread to keep in mind throughout this musical journey it is this:
Without Black Culture and Black Music, There is No Modern Sound System Culture.
To understand how modern Sound System Culture and Dubstep has evolved we have to start at it origins in Jamaica in the early 1970s. With reggae music already widespread in Jamaica, Dub started to gain popularity in the dancehall scene as artists like Lee “Scratch” Perry, Augustus Pablo and King Tubby started expanding the idea of the Jamaican Sound System. Dancehall helped spawn the birth of “Sound Systems,” Jamaican slang for a collective of DJs and audio engineers. This culture allowed for dancehall to flourish, building the foundation for today’s bass music.
The original innovators established Dub not just as a distinct offshoot of reggae, but as a prototype for modern electronic music and its associated practices. The elevation of the producer and/or engineer as the artist and the concept of a song remix can all be attributed to iconic Dub artists like Lee “Scratch” Perry and over the next few decades would continue to shape Dubstep, Rap, Hip-Hop, and Grime, among other genres.
Along with the sound engineer becoming the artist, the exclusivity of the tracks they made and how they released them influenced the modern Dubstep scene. Even today, certain artists will only release particular tracks on vinyl or “Dub plates” and the fact that you can only hear the tracks if you go to their live shows adds to underground nature and exclusivity of the genre.
A Brief Look Into Sound System Culture Genres
When talking about Sound System Culture, it is important to not only understand its roots, but the umbrella that it encompasses. For the purpose of this activity, we will be specifically looking at the progression of Dub into Dubstep.
Dub refers to rearranging elements within an existing recording through the isolation of individual instrumental tracks with the addition of various effects to create a new work.
This idea of the sound engineer becoming the artist and manipulating produced tracks into something totally new has evolved the bass culture into may offshoots.
The easiest way to categorize bass music is through “BPMs” or beats per minute. 140 BPM is traditional for Dubstep and derives from a two-step sound. UK Garage also falls under the 140 BPM, but has a “4 on the floor” beat in comparison to Dubstep’s 2-step structure. Once you produce higher BPM music, you get a faster sound and different genres emerge. In the 160 range you have Drum and Bass and Jungle. Speeding things up even more, when you reach the 165–170 range you have Footwork, Juke and Turbo. All of these genres stem from the original Jamaican Sound System, but have each evolved into their own unique sounds with many DJ’s mixing different genres into their own production.
From Jamaica to the UK
When exploring the spread of Jamaican Dub into the UK, it starts with immigration. Between 1955 and 1968, nearly 200,000 Jamaican citizens migrated to UK to seek out new opportunities. This in turn developed large Jamaican communities in cities like London and Birmingham. Similar to our own dark history in the US, the UK has a troubling history of violence against black citizens, with Jamaicans being no exception. From the late 1950s and into the late 1980s the Jamaican community in the UK were the victims of race riots and police brutality.
This did not stop the resilience of the community and throughout the 1990s, dancehalls began to pop up in Jamaican communities such as Brent, Croydon, and Lambeth.
In the late 1990s, UK Garage was dominating the scene in London but started to evolve into the early, dark Dubstep sound. In the early 2000s, Big Apple Records became the hub of Dubstep, making Croydon the birthplace of the UK Dubstep sound. Record stores became the connection between the customers, local pirate radio stations and the supply of the newest underground sound.
Just like its origins in early Jamaican Sound System Culture, the competition of who had the latest sounds was driven by the exclusive nature of who had cut the latest unreleased Dub plates. This emerging dark sound did not fit the vibe of the mainstream clubs, so artists played in underground “Velvet Rooms” where the emphasis was on the quality and low-frequency of the sound, and not just to be a scene for clubbers to let loose.
In order to get a genuine sense of how the Dubstep sound evolved from the late 1990s into modern day, we are going to explore:
An Auditory Timeline of Dubstep
- 1997: Double 99’s “Rip Groove” breaks into mainstream with a 2-step sound in comparison to the “4 on the floor” beats of most UK Garage and House music that was popular at the time.
- 2000: Tempa label is born and becomes a big influence of the emerging, darker sound. Their sound helps shift away from UK Garage and Grime into unique Dubstep sound.
- 2004: Legendary producers Mala, Coki, Loefah and MC Sgt. Pokes create the DMZ aka Digital Mystikz record label helping establish the Dubstep sound rooted in Jamaican Sound System Culture.
- 2005: Skream’s release of “Midnight Request Line” becomes iconic Dubstep -anthem and the influence of Dubstep starts growing with access to bigger clubs and bigger time slots.
- 2006: Mary Anne Hobbes Breezeblock radio show on BBC 1 features “Dub Step Wars.” This specific broadcast was the turning point for Dubstep and exposed Dubstep to the whole world.
- 2007: The album FabricLive.37 by producers Caspa and Rusko is released and becomes a defining moment for UK Dubstep, continuing to spread its influence world wide. Promoters Joe Nice and Dave Q were the main influencers promoting the sound in the US.
- Mid 2000s: Dubstep continues to grow in popularity in the UK and starts to influence mainstream music in the US with artist like Snoop Dog and Eve using Dubstep influenced beats in their songs.
- Mid 2000s: The signature low frequency bass sound of UK Dubstep starts to shift to midrange frequencies and gritty base sounds and “Brostep” emerges.
- 2010: Skrillex releases debut album “Scary Monsters & Nice Sprites” and Brostep blows up in the US. Audibly you can hear a metal and emo influence, in comparison to the Jamaican Dub and reggae influences of UK Dubstep.
- 2012: Brostep continues to be essential at raves and festivals in the US and the UK and its influence continues to spread. Many believe around this time with tracks like Flux Pavillion’s “I can’t stop” dominating the airwaves, that Dubstep has died out and that the mainstream industries killed the genre.
- 2013 & Beyond: Meanwhile in the UK, producers are still pushing their signature, dark and low frequency Dubstep sound and the underground genre is still going strong. There are too many influential producers to name, but the handful of tracks posted below are a good example of the range of modern Dubstep and the signature dark UK sound.
As we wrap up todays journey, it is important to remember that:
The Headliner of Any Show within Sound System Culture is the Quality of the System.
The tracks we sampled today are a great example of the range of Dubstep, but it is impossible to hear and feel the full range of the sound, unless it is played on a high quality large system. What makes Dubstep and Sound System Culture so unique and fun is that the sound is still evolving and forever changing. Big ups to to the Jamaican pioneers of Dub and to all the producers creating the signature dark sound, that when played on the proper system, can push the boundaries of how one experiences music.
