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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)?
Hardcore was heading towards jungle via ragga as early as 91, but things really transformed in 93 with the more London-centric, darker 'blacker' sound, alienating a lot of ravers and producers.
Things really hit the fan in 94 when incredible hit the charts twice, peaking at number 8 in September (Original Nuttah got to 39 a month later!), this was followed by General Levy getting a lot of press apparently claiming to 'King of the Jungle', pissing off a lot of producers and labels who were already moving in a more 'intelligent' direction and thought the ragga kids were fucking up their scene with bad publicity and cheap cash in tunes (Jet Star, fashion and Greensleeves had gotten in on the scene by then).
What followed has been the subject of much discussion and rumour, but the story goes that a bunch of unnamed producers and label owners formed the legendary Jungle 'committee', and decided that ragga was a no go. Cue ragga jungle events and artists being boycotted, ragga jungle artists being cut out of photos and documentaries and (allegedly) DJ Rap getting death threats warning her not to play certain tunes or at certain events.
There was also some anti-jungle feeling on the ragga side of things with 'Jungle Bungle' - "One bag of noise and a whole heap a sample/That's something my ear holes can't handle... Starkey Banton nah DJ pon no Jungle", but Tenor Flys' reply on 'Dont dis the jungle' - "jungle put food on nuff DJs plate" was the standard pragmatic response from most dancehall DJs and labels.
John's summarised it pretty well there actually... the Shut Up and Dance interview in Woofah 2 touches on this topic as well.
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.
Hmm. not sure I agree with that. This has been discussed here and few other places before, so at the risk of repeating myself, heres my (non UK resident) take on the term:
Id say ragga is a subset of dancehall. Personally Id use it to describe late 80s/early 90s stuff, after the digital revolution and before dancehall settled into the bomp-bomp-tsch beat of a lot of late 90s (and beyond) material.
I think its fair to say that its more of a description of DJ style and attitude than production though. Daddy Freddy obviously, Lt. Stitchie, Ninja, Mackerel, Tiger, Flourgon, Sweetie Irie, Jigsy King, Joseph Stepper - that kinda sound.
Though I think its to fair to say that boundaries are blurred to say the least.