Don't know how to quote from other threads properly, but this is a post of Tim F's that I always remember from that infamous 2stepintellipostdubstep thread
Probably the most pernicious binary is the one between binaries or their lack: as if the self-evident truth that a theory of music or set of aesthetic preferences cannot explain all that is good about music necessitates their abandoment in favour of pure flux.
Most of the things talked about in this thread are tendential: the existence of a continuum, the importance of "street"/"rudeboy" elements, the music's relationship to questions of class. Like anything tendential, contradictions and counter-examples abound.
If SR was on this thread he would say the same, and further, that those contradictions and counter-examples feed back into the overarching structure of the trend, that e.g. Foul Play gentrifying (from the OG "Open Your Mind" through to "Being With You" et. al) really established the limits of what "rudeboy" possibly could mean (and undeniably, there is a trip-limit there, where "intelligent" jungle stops signifying hardcore, but where that limit is precisely not surprisingly is and always has been contested).
Marcus playing Ramadanman or Mosca is another example of this. But as a fact in and of itself its capacity to illuminate is limited. The next question is: which Ramadanman and Mosca, and why? Which Dennis Ferrer and which Feliciano and which Bugz in the Attic and which dutch electro-house, for that matter? There is a process of discrimination at work here, divining a possible logic amongst all of these things that couldn't have been identified before, but cannot be summarised as "Ramadanman and Mosca and Dennis Ferrer and Feliciano and..." as if you could take any tune by these artists and find the results the same.
Scenes are like constellations if the stars in the sky were all pushed together, such that the stars forming the outer edge of one constellation also formed the outer edge (or even inner structure) of others. Notwithstanding this, each constellation shows a different imagined picture, and usually the ones we are drawn to are those which seem brightest and most fully formed as a constellation, rather than just a random collection of stars.
PS. Cheers for the nice words Luka.
Yeah but see here's the thing. I don't disagree with the specifics of that post, I disagree with its scenastor aspect. Scenes are the inevitable process of gentrification. It's not a case of defining the limits of rudeboy, but a case of separation, of expunging. Dance music works best within those liminal spaces, with in the gaps. 93-early 94 when jungle hadn't fully crystalised, 2001-2002 when dark garage hadn't fully crystalised into grime/halfstep, 1974-76 when disco was emerging from the merger of funk, soul and jazz. 2007-08 when funky was 8 bar adapted to a house template. The list is endless. What Tim wants is to say these moments are indeed those which need to be championed, but that they are also scenastor scenes. Except they aren't, which is precisely why the deterritorialisation (or the centre as it were) cannot hold.