1996:
Photek - Natural Born Killa
Has anyone ever done a forthright racial critique of the degradation of jungle? Ragga backlash, the committee, the rise of techstep, simplified rhythms, removal of funk. bi-racial production scene going almost exclusively white, student popularity, bass disappearing in favour of mid-range riffs... culminating in the ultimate exemplar of whiteness, the heavy metal/rock crossover...
I hated Warhead back in the day, and I still do. In late 1997 I heard this EVERY night, at least the first few seconds. It is one of those "toilet tracks" meaning the DJ dropping it ususally sent me to the toilets immediately.
Funny bc I consider Krust to be a top producer - aside from the horrible Warhead. I have quite a collection of his work still on my shelves.
I think in retrospect some of the late 90s tech step stuff has more in common with the breakcore/Ambush/Praxis stuff than jungle.
It would be interesting to compare jungle -> tech step to the rise of UK Dub/steppers also. I think appealing to larger, international audiences is part of it.
I think the last d 'n' b night I went to was in Eindhoven in 2001 with a guest appearance by that lot that did "Tarantula". It was peculiarly stiff. There was a white MC going on about "how we do things in London" which was just laughable.
Reynolds was beating that drum a bit IIRC. Main "Thesis": a lot of the black producers left around '97 for SpeedGarage.
However some of the main "neurofunk offenders" were black like Grooverider or Mampi Swift. And wasn't the mid-range riff thing being popularized by Bad Company in the early 2000's (which DBridge, a "mixed-race" guy was a main member)? Meaning the late 90s Neurofunk didn'T have that mid-range riffage featured that prominently.
Regarding DubStep - I am by no means an expert on Dubstep, I kinda followed it via listening to a mix here and there or an album. But even from my position as a distant observer there seem to be striking similarities: that mid-range-blasting "BroStep" did emerge when Dubstep reached international status (mainly in the US) right? Also, a couple years back you had dubstep-sounds in advertising. Just like in 1996/7/8 you'd have JungleDnB like jingles in TV intros and Ads.
The starting point was less radical, but yeah. The blackness was sucked out of it by select producers, that style became dominant and the scene started to spread internationally and then awful mid range riffage and aggression bleached it beyond recognition.
Yeah, I think he's covered it in detail and its been gone over in depth by numerous commentators... white people fucking everything up is pretty much the story of 20th century music - though the similarities are particularly striking in this case.
you lot are mad. jump-up killed this music long before tech-step got invented. jump-up was easily as bad, almost worse.