Jungle
lol. Last time I was over I (no doubt) annoyed the hell out of John Eden by repeatedly claiming that jungle was just a UK mutation of reggae. You can actually make a good argument there - but only if you completely write techno out of the mix and fumble over breaks.
Dev Paradox has an interesting take on this as well - IIRC he has argued that the rhythmic core of jungle is funk, soul & r+b with hip-hop acting mainly as a gateway to those sources...
Dev has a point in so far as the feel of jungle is a LONG way from any feel in hip hop of the 90s
it's samples + breaks, so yes, hip hop - but the breaks are chopped up to fuck, super-propulsive yet unstable, manic and flustered in a way that hardly anyone in rap ever sounded like, except maybe Public Enemy at their most one-minute-to-midnight emergency-urgent
it's not boom-bap, it's not headnod
so i'd say the equation is something like hip hop + reggae + techno X Ecstasy
the drug sensations are almost like a genre influence in their own right
the E-vibes stay encoded in the music for a long time, even after people stopped doing pills
it's samples + breaks, so yes, hip hop - but the breaks are chopped up to fuck, super-propulsive yet unstable, manic and flustered in a way that hardly anyone in rap ever sounded like, except maybe Public Enemy at their most one-minute-to-midnight emergency-urgent
it's not boom-bap, it's not headnod
so i'd say the equation is something like hip hop + reggae + techno X Ecstasy
the drug sensations are almost like a genre influence in their own right
the E-vibes stay encoded in the music for a long time, even after people stopped doing pills
sadmanbarty
Well-known member
I would say these genres are a rhythmic core, not the rhythmic core. Me and droid have gone round in circles about this but I really do think dancehall deserves about 50% of rhythmic core credit.
I went from 1 through 91 of this playlist to see how many tracks use particular snare emphasis/rhythmic idioms (except for repeated entries and deleted videos):
/watch?v=Ng95sVG_wKU&list=PLXas4svwLCl4WzaMhFL1Zy6QbUggh2iBf
For tracks that feature Jamaican samples (the majority of these tracks):
Snare on 2 & 4- 10
Bossa Nova-ish snare emphasis- 28
Snare on every 2, but not 4* - 19
One Drop- 4
Dancehall- 3
Other- 0
For tracks that feature no Jamaican samples:
Snare on 2 & 4- 6
Snare doing Bossa Nova-ish emphasis- 12
Snare on every 2, but not 4* - 8
One Drop- 2
Dancehall- 0
Other- 1
* This kind of subversion of the 2 & 4 symmetry is found in funk/soul/RnB tracks like James Brown's Mama Popcorn and the 3rd bar of the amen break. On the other hand, taking kick emphasis into account, on the Jungle tracks a lot of these rhythms evoke dancehall; 80 bpm ragga rhythms programmed with 160 bpm breaks. So it's a tough call either way.
I went from 1 through 91 of this playlist to see how many tracks use particular snare emphasis/rhythmic idioms (except for repeated entries and deleted videos):
/watch?v=Ng95sVG_wKU&list=PLXas4svwLCl4WzaMhFL1Zy6QbUggh2iBf
For tracks that feature Jamaican samples (the majority of these tracks):
Snare on 2 & 4- 10
Bossa Nova-ish snare emphasis- 28
Snare on every 2, but not 4* - 19
One Drop- 4
Dancehall- 3
Other- 0
For tracks that feature no Jamaican samples:
Snare on 2 & 4- 6
Snare doing Bossa Nova-ish emphasis- 12
Snare on every 2, but not 4* - 8
One Drop- 2
Dancehall- 0
Other- 1
* This kind of subversion of the 2 & 4 symmetry is found in funk/soul/RnB tracks like James Brown's Mama Popcorn and the 3rd bar of the amen break. On the other hand, taking kick emphasis into account, on the Jungle tracks a lot of these rhythms evoke dancehall; 80 bpm ragga rhythms programmed with 160 bpm breaks. So it's a tough call either way.
Well said. Also the point that jungle used 4/8, sometimes even 16 bar loops, whereas hip hop was almost always 1/2 bar loops.
sadmanbarty
Well-known member
To Droid.
Firstly, apologies for being so pedantic, I realise this is ridiculous.
So as to get a wider sample of non-ragga Jungle I've gone through this playlist
/watch?v=s2nvKKYeZ2Y&list=PLed92a71f2zdktTyRntjWvzo085iXLCKb&index=1
and added to my previous tally based on 1-91 of this playlist:
/watch?v=Ng95sVG_wKU&list=PLXas4svwLCl4WzaMhFL1Zy6QbUggh2iBf
For tracks that feature Jamaican samples:
Snare on 2 & 4- 10
Bossa Nova-ish snare emphasis- 31
Snare on every 2, but not 4 - 19
One Drop- 4
Dancehall- 3
Other- 0
For tracks that feature no Jamaican samples:
Snare on 2 & 4- 18
Snare doing Bossa Nova-ish emphasis- 32
Snare on every 2, but not 4 - 23
One Drop- 3
Dancehall- 1
Other- 1
Tracks that are explicitly indebted to Jamaica, and in particular dancehall, (as shown through sampling) use Bossa Nova-ish rhythms at 3 times the rate they use straight 2 & 4.
Tracks that don't sample Jamaican music (which suggests they are less informed by dancehall) Bossa Nova-ish rhythms are used less then 2 times as much as straight 2 & 4.
would you accept that this suggests jungle's bossa nova-ish rhythms do have lineage in dancehall?
Firstly, apologies for being so pedantic, I realise this is ridiculous.
So as to get a wider sample of non-ragga Jungle I've gone through this playlist
/watch?v=s2nvKKYeZ2Y&list=PLed92a71f2zdktTyRntjWvzo085iXLCKb&index=1
and added to my previous tally based on 1-91 of this playlist:
/watch?v=Ng95sVG_wKU&list=PLXas4svwLCl4WzaMhFL1Zy6QbUggh2iBf
For tracks that feature Jamaican samples:
Snare on 2 & 4- 10
Bossa Nova-ish snare emphasis- 31
Snare on every 2, but not 4 - 19
One Drop- 4
Dancehall- 3
Other- 0
For tracks that feature no Jamaican samples:
Snare on 2 & 4- 18
Snare doing Bossa Nova-ish emphasis- 32
Snare on every 2, but not 4 - 23
One Drop- 3
Dancehall- 1
Other- 1
Tracks that are explicitly indebted to Jamaica, and in particular dancehall, (as shown through sampling) use Bossa Nova-ish rhythms at 3 times the rate they use straight 2 & 4.
Tracks that don't sample Jamaican music (which suggests they are less informed by dancehall) Bossa Nova-ish rhythms are used less then 2 times as much as straight 2 & 4.
would you accept that this suggests jungle's bossa nova-ish rhythms do have lineage in dancehall?
Hey, you dont have to prove anything to me.
Im not saying they're aren't similarities there, and I certainly approve of the nerdiness, but I think you're approaching this from the wrong direction. What Ive found from my abortive attempts at production is that very often the shapes of the original breaks tend not to deviate from the originals very much at all. Check out hot pants, cold sweat, apache, scorpio, helicopter, horizons etc... in their raw form (http://www.junglebreaks.co.uk/breaks.html) and you quickly realise that in many cases the breaks weren't cut up at all, just sped up & pitched up or down.
Add a hot pants or a think to an amen, or a soul pride and a think you have ready made, natural rhythmic combinations, and I think it was this studio process that primarily led to the phenomenon you mention. The funk was essentially already encoded into the source material.
Thats not to say that there arent jungle tunes more directly indebted to dancehall rhythm. I posted this earlier:
And here is the original riddim Ruffest Gunark appeared on. Same bassline. This would be reasonably unusual though
Im not saying they're aren't similarities there, and I certainly approve of the nerdiness, but I think you're approaching this from the wrong direction. What Ive found from my abortive attempts at production is that very often the shapes of the original breaks tend not to deviate from the originals very much at all. Check out hot pants, cold sweat, apache, scorpio, helicopter, horizons etc... in their raw form (http://www.junglebreaks.co.uk/breaks.html) and you quickly realise that in many cases the breaks weren't cut up at all, just sped up & pitched up or down.
Add a hot pants or a think to an amen, or a soul pride and a think you have ready made, natural rhythmic combinations, and I think it was this studio process that primarily led to the phenomenon you mention. The funk was essentially already encoded into the source material.
Thats not to say that there arent jungle tunes more directly indebted to dancehall rhythm. I posted this earlier:
And here is the original riddim Ruffest Gunark appeared on. Same bassline. This would be reasonably unusual though
sadmanbarty
Well-known member
The tally of these breaks except for 'the flow' and 'soul beat runna':
http://www.junglebreaks.co.uk/breaks.html
Snare on 2 & 4- 33
Snare doing Bossa Nova-ish emphasis- 2
Snare on 2, but not 4 - 8
http://www.junglebreaks.co.uk/breaks.html
Snare on 2 & 4- 33
Snare doing Bossa Nova-ish emphasis- 2
Snare on 2, but not 4 - 8
sadmanbarty
Well-known member
Ah, but what happens when you combine them?
Again, from my limited experience in the studio, the process is something like - you take a break, cut it up, pitch and tune it as best you can, then reconstruct it in its original form (ala helicopter in the tune above), maybe change it up a bit - then you take your second/third breaks, layer it over the first, subtract the stuff that overlaps or clashes to create a counter or contrasting rhythm (ala cold sweat above), go back and tweak the first break etc.
So I guess the point Im making is that the studio process is generally organic and reactive, and seldom theoretical - which is what I think it would have to be for producers to be deliberately incorporating bossa nova, dancehall or other rhythms (not to say that there haven't been tunes made with a particular rhythm in mind, just that in general, in don't think it worked that way).
Again, from my limited experience in the studio, the process is something like - you take a break, cut it up, pitch and tune it as best you can, then reconstruct it in its original form (ala helicopter in the tune above), maybe change it up a bit - then you take your second/third breaks, layer it over the first, subtract the stuff that overlaps or clashes to create a counter or contrasting rhythm (ala cold sweat above), go back and tweak the first break etc.
So I guess the point Im making is that the studio process is generally organic and reactive, and seldom theoretical - which is what I think it would have to be for producers to be deliberately incorporating bossa nova, dancehall or other rhythms (not to say that there haven't been tunes made with a particular rhythm in mind, just that in general, in don't think it worked that way).
Are you counting your bars at 90 or 180bpm? At 180 it hits at 2/4 surely?
sadmanbarty
Well-known member
At 180 bpm it's on 2 and the off beat of 3
sadmanbarty
Well-known member
Just to clarify my understanding of things.
My tallying shows that of the soul/funk/rnb breaks used in Jungle, the ones where the snare emphasises the 2 & 4 outnumber more bosa nova-ish rhythms by 16 to 1.
On the other hand, in 1994 ragga-jungle, bosa nova-ish rhythms outnumber straight 2 & 4 by 3 to 1. For non ragga jungle in 1994, bossa nova outnumbers 2 & 4 by 1.5 (ish) to 1.
So while Jungle drum timbres and use of volume dynamics are indebted to soul/funk/rnb their actual rhythms are not.
So where do the rhythms come from?
Due to it’s proximity with Latin America, Jamaica absorbed Latin rhythms. Rudimentary versions of these rhythms became the bedrock of dancehall, an early example being the punnany riddim.
Many Jungle producers were fans of dancehall, or at least exposed to it, and as such absorbed these Latin-indebted rhythmic idioms.
In 1994, complex, mutated Latin rhythms (by way of dancehall) came to dominate Jungle. Presumably this was a subconscious process, but I don’t think it’s impossible that some producers tried to make dancehall rhythms using breaks and in the process came out with something bossa nova-ish.
The fact that ragga jungle (i.e jungle explicitly referencing dancehall) was more likely to use bosa nova- ish rhythms than non ragga jungle, leads me to believe that there is a direct (yet subconscious) lineage to dancehall, rather than arising merely from from production experiments.
I’d also mention that in the US, where the Jamaica isn’t as influential musically, music that relies on breaks (hip hop, hip house, Baltimore club, etc.) has normal 2 & 4 rhythms. Same breaks, same technology, but different influences and as such different rhythms.
My tallying shows that of the soul/funk/rnb breaks used in Jungle, the ones where the snare emphasises the 2 & 4 outnumber more bosa nova-ish rhythms by 16 to 1.
On the other hand, in 1994 ragga-jungle, bosa nova-ish rhythms outnumber straight 2 & 4 by 3 to 1. For non ragga jungle in 1994, bossa nova outnumbers 2 & 4 by 1.5 (ish) to 1.
So while Jungle drum timbres and use of volume dynamics are indebted to soul/funk/rnb their actual rhythms are not.
So where do the rhythms come from?
Due to it’s proximity with Latin America, Jamaica absorbed Latin rhythms. Rudimentary versions of these rhythms became the bedrock of dancehall, an early example being the punnany riddim.
Many Jungle producers were fans of dancehall, or at least exposed to it, and as such absorbed these Latin-indebted rhythmic idioms.
In 1994, complex, mutated Latin rhythms (by way of dancehall) came to dominate Jungle. Presumably this was a subconscious process, but I don’t think it’s impossible that some producers tried to make dancehall rhythms using breaks and in the process came out with something bossa nova-ish.
The fact that ragga jungle (i.e jungle explicitly referencing dancehall) was more likely to use bosa nova- ish rhythms than non ragga jungle, leads me to believe that there is a direct (yet subconscious) lineage to dancehall, rather than arising merely from from production experiments.
I’d also mention that in the US, where the Jamaica isn’t as influential musically, music that relies on breaks (hip hop, hip house, Baltimore club, etc.) has normal 2 & 4 rhythms. Same breaks, same technology, but different influences and as such different rhythms.
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
well there you are, i guess you cant argue with science
Don't take this the wrong way - Im enjoying the discussion, but here's what I think the weaknesses in your argument are:
1. Sample sizes - far too small in each case. And of course, once you deviate from a 2/4 snare pattern does that automatically mean its 'Latin'? You would need some very firm definitions to back up an analysis like this.
2. Too much emphasis on the Latin influence on dancehall. Sure, there is a strong thread of Latin influence in Jamaican music, particularly from salsa in the 40's/early 50's, and some early rocksteady and reggae tunes are at least partially based on Latin standards, but even in that sense, New Orleans, Rasta, Burru drumming, Mento... are much stronger influences. Also, Carribean music in general shares some of the same rhythmic characteristics, Calypso, Son, Merengue, Soca, Salsa, Mento... so it might be more accurate to see African traditions as a common influence rather than Latin music influencing everything else.
With regard to dancehall itself, it was around for 10 years before Punanny introduced the boom-boom-chick pattern, and it's one of the most rhythmically promiscuous genres around... Hip-hop, Pocomania, Kumina, Banghra, Mento & various Reggae rhythms are all utilised, there was a huge amount of output, tons of studio experimentation, loads of competition between studios and producers... so Im not sure exactly how much you can pin on the Latin influence.
This is the main problem here I think. The thesis is inherently unprovable. Im pretty sure most of the producers of those tunes would say that they were simply trying to make breaks work in the studio.
Also, the chain of influence all seems a bit doubtful... dancehall, strongly influenced by latin music - maybe. Jungle producers absorbing these 2nd hand influences subconsciously and producing something 'bossa-nova-ish'... ...doesnt seem hugely convincing to me.
On the other hand this might just as well weaken your argument... Tons of dancehall samples included bass, drums or other rhythmic elements as well as the vocal, so it would make sense for jungle producers to build around these elements rather than fight against them. If the influence is less present in non-ragga jungle then this could show that there was no pervasive influence, just a reaction to the musical elements present in some of the source material...
Still, entertaining theory. Id like to see a systematic analysis of common jungle break combinations and variations with comparisons to various Latin patterns, cross referenced with an overview of the commonalities of late 80's and early 90's dancehall riddims and their sales figures/penetration in the UK reggae scene X the probability of their exposure to future jungle producers....
1. Sample sizes - far too small in each case. And of course, once you deviate from a 2/4 snare pattern does that automatically mean its 'Latin'? You would need some very firm definitions to back up an analysis like this.
2. Too much emphasis on the Latin influence on dancehall. Sure, there is a strong thread of Latin influence in Jamaican music, particularly from salsa in the 40's/early 50's, and some early rocksteady and reggae tunes are at least partially based on Latin standards, but even in that sense, New Orleans, Rasta, Burru drumming, Mento... are much stronger influences. Also, Carribean music in general shares some of the same rhythmic characteristics, Calypso, Son, Merengue, Soca, Salsa, Mento... so it might be more accurate to see African traditions as a common influence rather than Latin music influencing everything else.
With regard to dancehall itself, it was around for 10 years before Punanny introduced the boom-boom-chick pattern, and it's one of the most rhythmically promiscuous genres around... Hip-hop, Pocomania, Kumina, Banghra, Mento & various Reggae rhythms are all utilised, there was a huge amount of output, tons of studio experimentation, loads of competition between studios and producers... so Im not sure exactly how much you can pin on the Latin influence.
This is the main problem here I think. The thesis is inherently unprovable. Im pretty sure most of the producers of those tunes would say that they were simply trying to make breaks work in the studio.
Also, the chain of influence all seems a bit doubtful... dancehall, strongly influenced by latin music - maybe. Jungle producers absorbing these 2nd hand influences subconsciously and producing something 'bossa-nova-ish'... ...doesnt seem hugely convincing to me.
On the other hand this might just as well weaken your argument... Tons of dancehall samples included bass, drums or other rhythmic elements as well as the vocal, so it would make sense for jungle producers to build around these elements rather than fight against them. If the influence is less present in non-ragga jungle then this could show that there was no pervasive influence, just a reaction to the musical elements present in some of the source material...
Still, entertaining theory. Id like to see a systematic analysis of common jungle break combinations and variations with comparisons to various Latin patterns, cross referenced with an overview of the commonalities of late 80's and early 90's dancehall riddims and their sales figures/penetration in the UK reggae scene X the probability of their exposure to future jungle producers....