Ragga Jungle

[martin]

anyway i guess a fair few people on here were around at the time that this kicked off.... i want stories people! filthy, dirty stories...

I haven't got any filthy, dirty ones, unless you're interested in knowing '94 was the year that loads of girls were wearing tartan mini-skirts and thigh-high socks to raves....but for me '94-'95 was so exciting, stuff like "Original Nuttah" and "Dancehall Junglist" and "Heartless" made all your other records sound hopelessly slow and lacklustre. Laserdrome in Peckham was quite heavy, I know it closed down suddenly because of some violent incident in the end, anyone else remember what exactly happened? Notting Hill '94 was fucking incredible - anyone who disputes this wasn't there, or hasn't heard "Sweet Vibrations" at the proper concrete-breaking volume. It did get a bit tedious hearing the jungle version of "Under Mi Sensi" being played all the time on TV when jungle moved more into the mainstream the following year...also funny was that house and techno fans were briefly united in saying jungle was impossible to dance to

I could never figure out the jungle vs ragga thing as I was into both at the time. MC Rico from Style FM probably played a part in stirring things up, he'd be chatting, "YOU STEP OUT OF RAGGA...YOU STEP INTO JUNGLE.??...MIND OUT, RUDE GUY! YOU'RE NOT WANTED, YOU'RE NOT WARRANTED HERE!" - but then he was also playing ragga jungle tunes. Actually, if you can get any Style FM tapes from '94-'95, definitely do, cos they were mental. I'd swim the Channel if I could get back the one I had where they were tearing into General Levy and rapping Madness lyrics over a Jungle Warrior tune.

Top Cat's "Shaolin" LP is a bootleg but collects a load of his jungle stuff, worth picking up if you find it...

Also, if you listen to "Heaven and Hell" by MC Olive through a 100W speaker, it will actually generate a strong gust of breeze to cool you down (in the 'yaaay' bit between verses), that's how well the records were mastered back then.

 

[benjybars]

nice one martin!


i remember some other mentions of the laserdrome in peckham in some other threads... anyone else used to reach??

didn't all the jungle heads have a meeting where they decided to boycott general levy co of the way he reacted to the success of incredible?!?


any documentaries / writing that are particularly good?

 

[john eden]

books on jungle:

State of Bass
All Crew

Neither great, but both ok.

"The committee" is covered in both, iirc.

 

[benjybars]

books on jungle:

State of Bass
All Crew

Neither great, but both ok.

"The committee" is covered in both, iirc.

i read All Crews.. thought it was pretty good (although hard to say having not been around at the time).

My first memory of jungle is a friend of a friend (successfully) spitting all the lyrics to 'incredible' at a next friend's 12th birthday party.. i thought it was the coolest thing i'd ever seen. it's still in my top 5 actually..

 

[martin]

didn't all the jungle heads have a meeting where they decided to boycott general levy co of the way he reacted to the success of incredible?!?

I can't remember the 'committee' at the time, it's something I read about years later - it was just kind of the equivalent of if Top Cat had claimed to have invented ragga. Levy was perceived as taking too much credit,so their attitude was fuck you, we won't play your tunes - which then spiralled into some storm, with people sending death threats to female DJs, pretty sad really.

 

[viktorvaughn]

I can't remember the 'committee' at the time, it's something I read about years later - it was just kind of the equivalent of if Top Cat had claimed to have invented ragga. Levy was perceived as taking too much credit,so their attitude was fuck you, we won't play your tunes - which then spiralled into some storm, with people sending death threats to female DJs, pretty sad really.

Didn't the Committee also blacklist DJ Rap for playing 4Heros 'Mr Kirks Nightmare' at a rave where a kid had just died from drugs? She had problems getting bookings for years. Or that is the story at least.

 

[wonk_vitesse]

Return of the Amen Spamer - Krumble

I just heard this>

Krumble on Damage

Krumble delivers again, the guy is a master of the medium without doubt, sure the amen break is dead but when it's this much fun who cares.

 

[ripley]

I could never figure out the jungle vs ragga thing as I was into both at the time. MC Rico from Style FM probably played a part in stirring things up, he'd be chatting, "YOU STEP OUT OF RAGGA...YOU STEP INTO JUNGLE.??...MIND OUT, RUDE GUY! YOU'RE NOT WANTED, YOU'RE NOT WARRANTED HERE!" - but then he was also playing ragga jungle tunes.

wait.. what's the difference between jungle and ragga?

do you mean ragga as in dancehall?
I don't think the term "ragga" caught on the US as separate from ragga jungle, much. I remember noticing when I came to England that people called Dancehall "Ragga"...

sorry for yet another terminology derailing.

 

[lissajou]

Remember there being something called "Planet Mu Jungle Mix" floating around on the internets awhile back. Absolutely ferocious jam. Anyone know who might have put this together, or where I might find a copy?

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Quality mix found: http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=badman+soundclash+mix&meta=

 

[Leo]

Remember there being something called "Planet Mu Jungle Mix" floating around on the internets awhile back. Absolutely ferocious jam. Anyone know who might have put this together, or where I might find a copy?

http://raggajungle.biz/planet-mu-megamix-by-zajko/

 

[muser]

wait.. what's the difference between jungle and ragga?

do you mean ragga as in dancehall?
I don't think the term "ragga" caught on the US as separate from ragga jungle, much. I remember noticing when I came to England that people called Dancehall "Ragga"...

sorry for yet another terminology derailing.

Yea ragga on its own is a sub genre of dancehall, from around the 80's onwards I think; sleng teng etc.

 

[ripley]

Yea ragga on its own is a sub genre of dancehall, from around the 80's onwards I think; sleng teng etc.

ok, thanks. And there was explicit antagonism between the ragga scene and the jungle scene? INteresting.. Anyone care to say more about that?

My experience in the US was that the dancehall scene stayed almost totally separate from the jungle/electronic dance music scene. Considering dancehall's relatively smaller popularity here (and proportionately smaller direct Jamaican influence on American culture), I wasn't even aware of an overlap at all, enough to cause hostility, or even awareness of the other scene (except maybe a little bit of crossover in NY). Perhaps it was different other parts of the US, but in general my impression was the US Jungle scene was much much whiter than in the UK I think..

so what was the animosity about in the UK, Martin (anyone)?

 

[benjybars]

can people please write more about ragga jungle?!?!


been reading through the tech-step thread and found it really interesting cos i don't really know anything about the different d&b sub-genres.... i want stuff like that but about ragga jungle..


give me labels, stories, raves etc..


thanks!

 

[mms]

Yea ragga on its own is a sub genre of dancehall, from around the 80's onwards I think; sleng teng etc.

ragga is just a british way of saying modern dancehall it's not a subgenre really.
english people refer to dancehall fans as raggas or raggamuffins.
jungle was just the adoption of ragga elements and mixing them with hardcore - i guess the antagonism came from ppl who didn't like jungle.
that whole committee thing was big players in jungle trying to change the course of the music by getting rid of some of the more aggressive rude boy dancehall elements by shutting them out.

 

[mms]

http://raggajungle.biz/planet-mu-megamix-by-zajko/

that's all modern idmish stuff - soundmurderers mix is a good one

 

[john eden]

so what was the animosity about in the UK, Martin (anyone)?

keep meaning to write something about this but there were a load of animosities, largely deriving from various people trying to "gatekeep" their own cultural capital.

So some reggae stalwarts didn't like jungle ripping off samples, vibes, it's all pill music not "spiritual" etc.

Some rave djs / promoters didn't like the rudebwoy/black aspect to it ("due to deforrestation this rave will be a jungle-free zone" on flyers etc)

Some jungle MCs didn't like it when old school reggae MCs tried a thing on their turf.

Some jungle producers objected to the term jungle cos they perceived it as racist ("music for jungle bunnies")

And then a strata of producers emerged who thought the ragga element was too unsophisticated and that they made "21st Centry Urban Breakbeat" or some cobblers which lead to all that jazz sampling nonsense and people wanting to work with "real" musicians, do proper albums blah blah blah.

 

[noel emits]

"21st Centry Urban Breakbeat"

Who was that nu-jazz type guy that some of the D&B people hooked up with? He used say stuff like that on the mic at the Blue Note. I'd want to laugh or make faces but everyone seemed to take it very seriously so I'd feel a bit wrong and out of place.

 

[luka]

oh yeah! cleveland watkiss!
i dunno why i ever went to that club, it was always shit.

 

[Client Eastwood]

ahhhh, it all fits in now, didnt he offer some of his musings on talvin singh record, again with the blue note connection. something like world is sound, troubles far away, underground. cringetastic . . .