Philosophy Of Jungle

When you switch on your iPod and penetrate into the world of bizarre images, dense forests, exotic plants, birds and tangled mazes, don't even hesitate its jungle music on.

While the use of the word to describe what is now known as Jungle music is debatable, the emergence of the term in musical circles can be roughly traced to Jamaican/Caribbean toasting (a pre-cursor to modern MCs), circa 1970. Some associate jungle with older material from the first half of the 1990s and see drum and bass as essentially succeeding jungle. Others use jungle as a shorthand for ragga jungle, a specific sub-genre within the broader realm of drum and bass.

Jungle is the name given to a style of electronic music that incorporates influences from genres including breakbeat, hardcore, techno, rare groove and reggae/dub/dancehall. Jungle is often heard via DJs. This style is credited with engaging the black community within the jungle scene, and contributed to the 'bad boy' or 'rude boy' subculture.

Jungle is widely popularized nowadays, and boosts the offshoots of ragga jungle (more Jamaican-Ragga influenced styles and lyrics), darkside jungle (instrumental jungle with a more minimal focus) and intelligent jungle (a more ambient sound, focusing on mood, synthesis and production methods).

The late 1980's and early 1990's saw the development of a musical style and scene, known as the jungle in the UK. The music of jungle combined regular beats alongside broken, syncopated, beats and strong basslines and fast tempos. As time drew by, jungle began to constitute a separate and recognizable musical genre (circa 1991-1992) popular at raves and on pirate radio in urban Britain. These tracks often combined ragga vocal tracks, broken beats and basslines.

It remains a fairly unknown musical style but makes frequent unrecognized appearance in the mainstream as well as being highly influential on other musical styles and some of its artists are widely known, perhaps none more so than Goldie. It remains most popular in its birthplace in the UK but has spread worldwide over the short period of its existence.