Another of the ‘should have beens’ from the drum & bass scene, Peshay was taken out of action by an illness that left him bed-bound for almost two years. Miles From Home, his debut album for Island Blue arrived too late have the impact he so richly deserved. One listen to ‘Psychosis’ is enough to reveal his production talent. Like ‘Pulp Fiction’, this was a defining tune for Metalheadz with its anxious cries, shrill noises, and jittering drum rolls that build towards the introduction of the Plastic Jam break that dominates from a minute in. The tune instantly evokes memories of a smoky basement in mid-1990s Hoxton. 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. That’s what rave was about. I learnt from it, though. If I can get that attention then what I’m doing is having an effect and I should take it seriously. So I redefined my brand as Aerosoul because – as you mentioned with the graffiti – that’s what everything was founded on for me. I bought the two together. It was everything that represented me; hip hop culture, graffiti, wordplay, the music, fashion.

I want to push Aerosoul Africa. That’s part of who I am and my identity. I want to focus more on that as a brand. Afrobeat is huge and Africa’s rich culture needs to be celebrated with products everyone would be proud to wear. I’m working with a really inspiring artist from Tanzania and it’s a big focus for me. Beyond that I’m just making sure I’m making the best products and designs I can and bringing everything together. Aerosoul, Junglist Movement, Hip Hop Movement, Babysoul, Soulero Sista and Aersosoul Africa. Each one is its own brand but all under the main Aerosoul umbrella. We’ve had some great attention recently so it’s about capitalising on that and bringing everything together in-house. Zinc, Hype and Pascal’s ridiculous hip-hop/jungle fusion that starts with samples from LL Cool J and Method Man, builds through lysergic squelches, dubbed up half-time jazz beats and Sleng Teng meets bleep bass before erupting, in a flurry of gunshots into the double-time Amen breaks and wobbly bass of the main verse. This s one of those tunes that demands physical reaction and – despite it’s age and lo-fi production – still sounds immense today.

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. Definitely. I was raving a lot. I got my flat in London when I was 18 and the whole crew was 20 deep by then. Dev and Dave were doing beats all day, I was studying at London College Of Fashion. Then at night we’d be raving either in London or in Essex. It was an inspiring mix. The Versace, Moschino champagne vibe in London then ravers in countryside with baggy stuff, bright colours, all that. I was loving elements of both and wanted to bring the two together because I didn’t see anything for the culture. Something that represents who you are, that all our boys would resonate with and want to wear. We saw how much fun they were having and brought it into our own circles’ ... raving at AWOL in Ministry of Sound. Photograph: Eddie Otchere

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.This tune famously caused a rift between Reece and Goldie when the latter refused to license the tune for use on Reece’s debut album on Island. Reece is one of those producers who should have been huge, but after his second album for Island was shelved he gradually retreated from drum & bass production. That unreleased album drew heavily on electro and was far superior to his debut. Sadly, it remains in the vaults 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.

Take one bassline created from the sound of rotating helicopter blades, another that shifts deep rolling funk and dancehall. Add it to a break built from Blowfly’s filthy ‘Sesame Street’ that occasional erupts into a snare roll that echoes the helicopter blades. Add horn stabs, gunshots, discordant strings and a jittering Afro sequence and you’re left with a tune that oozes tension and drips with suspense. A huge anthem in 1993, its metronomic flow had all of the detailed production that would mark out drum & bass in this era. It also offered a different vision to the ragga fused jump-up jungle sound that was dominating things at the time.

Yeah. They hit the right note with the right people. DJ Ron was one of the first who really helped me take the brand to where it needed to be. He was my mentor and very soon we had a lot of people representing the movement and clothing. It wasn’t long after that when I got the script for Human Traffic. The director had seen some of my samples, he was interested, the film went off and that was what really pushed the brand and design.

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. Definitely. For me collaboration is about mutual respect, when you get that balance the product is going to be dope. All my collaborations come about because we love what each other are doing. Even with the artists who I sponsor, that’s a collaboration for me. It’s not just product placement, it’s like A&Ring. People I’ve sponsored early on are now massive. That’s the A&R side, being able to spot a talent and seeing it if fits in with your brand and whether they’re going to be around for the long game. I ask myself where they’re going to be in five years time or 10 years time and we grow together. 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.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. 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. Drum & Bass is a genre that spans across three decades of rich musical history. Since its inception in the early 90s, the genre has kept shapeshifting its styles into different eras of music and it has now consolidated itself as a genre that is influencing electronic music in big ways. For a genre so rich in its history, it’s only fair that we narrate its evolution in the way it deserves to be; and through our ‘Evolution of Drum & Bass’ series, we aim to take you on a ride right from where it all began to its place in electronic music in modern-day electronic music. Junglists belong to what is seen as a predominantly UK-based drum and bass subculture. As a subculture, however, it is not nearly as distinct as goth or punk to the untrained eye, where members can often distinguish each other by their mannerisms and fashion without hearing their choice of music. Many of those who identify as Junglists adopt a mix of rasta, rudebwoy and B-Boy fashions since jungle, drum and bass and hip hop have close ties as subcultures.