{
  "slug": "drum-and-bass",
  "name": "Drum and Bass",
  "aliases": [
    "dnb",
    "d&b",
    "drum & bass",
    "drum n bass",
    "jungle"
  ],
  "description": "Breakbeat-driven dance music built on chopped Amen breaks at 160-180 BPM over sub-bass, born from UK hardcore and jungle in the early nineties and still the most rhythmically inventive music the country has produced.",
  "origin": {
    "place": "United Kingdom",
    "year": 1992
  },
  "lineage": [
    {
      "genre": "golden-age-hip-hop",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/golden-age-hip-hop/",
      "inherited": "The Amen break reached a British sampler because American records had already established that a drum loop lifted from someone else's song was a legitimate foundation to build on."
    },
    {
      "genre": "detroit-techno",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/detroit-techno/",
      "inherited": "Detroit supplied the sub-bass and the machine futurism, jungle supplied the breaks. Run Model 500's low end under chopped drums at twice the tempo and the rave apparatus is already assembled."
    },
    {
      "genre": "dub",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/dub/",
      "inherited": "The bass and the ritual. Jungle came out of British sound-system culture: the sub-bass as the point of the record, the dubplate as currency, and the MC and the rewind as things a rave inherited directly from Kingston."
    },
    {
      "genre": "breakbeat-hardcore",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/breakbeat-hardcore/",
      "inherited": "The direct line. Jungle is hardcore with the breaks chopped finer and the tempo split in two, made by the same producers on the same equipment for the same rooms, about two years later."
    }
  ],
  "bpm": {
    "min": 160,
    "max": 180
  },
  "updated": "2026-08-28",
  "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/drum-and-bass/",
  "trackCount": 15,
  "curatedBy": [],
  "playlists": {},
  "tracks": [
    {
      "rank": 1,
      "trackKey": "goldie--inner-city-life",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/goldie--inner-city-life/",
      "title": "Inner City Life",
      "artist": "Goldie",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/goldie/",
      "year": 1994,
      "label": "FFRR / Metalheadz",
      "isrc": "GBAAP9500462",
      "whyItMatters": "The record that proved jungle could carry grief. Diane Charlemagne's vocal floats over breaks chopped into timestretched dust, and the whole genre grew up in six minutes.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "nineteen-ninety-four",
          "name": "1994",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/nineteen-ninety-four/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-a-way-in",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — A Way In",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-a-way-in/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-the-hundred",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-the-hundred/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Goldie%20Inner%20City%20Life",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=i-P98B2skts",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 2,
      "trackKey": "shy-fx-and-uk-apache--original-nuttah",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/shy-fx-and-uk-apache--original-nuttah/",
      "title": "Original Nuttah",
      "artist": "Shy FX & UK Apache",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/shy-fx-and-uk-apache/",
      "year": 1994,
      "label": "SOUR",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Jungle's national anthem. Ragga vocal, air-horn, and a breakdown that still empties the bar and fills the floor thirty years on. Nothing else sounds this much like a specific place and year.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "nineteen-ninety-four",
          "name": "1994",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/nineteen-ninety-four/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-bass-weight",
          "name": "Bass Weight",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/the-desk-bass-weight/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-160",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — 160",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-160/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-ghosts",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — Ghosts",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-ghosts/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-the-hundred",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-the-hundred/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Shy%20FX%20%26%20UK%20Apache%20Original%20Nuttah",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=sxbekgL4w7w",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 3,
      "trackKey": "omni-trio--renegade-snares",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/omni-trio--renegade-snares/",
      "title": "Renegade Snares",
      "artist": "Omni Trio",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/omni-trio/",
      "year": 1993,
      "label": "Moving Shadow",
      "isrc": "GBAGN9300093",
      "whyItMatters": "The Foul Play remix is the blueprint: rolling Amen edits, a piano hook with real melancholy, and the discovery that breakbeat could be beautiful rather than only violent.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-the-hundred",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-the-hundred/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Omni%20Trio%20Renegade%20Snares",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzet6jYKQAU",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 4,
      "trackKey": "ltj-bukem--music",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/ltj-bukem--music/",
      "title": "Music",
      "artist": "LTJ Bukem",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/ltj-bukem/",
      "year": 1993,
      "label": "Good Looking",
      "isrc": "GBCCH9300039",
      "whyItMatters": "Where atmospheric drum and bass begins. Bukem swapped darkness for Rhodes chords and open space, and invented an entire strand of the genre that is still being mined.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/LTJ%20Bukem%20Music",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=DNQDoiuGq58",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 5,
      "trackKey": "roni-size-reprazent--brown-paper-bag",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/roni-size-reprazent--brown-paper-bag/",
      "title": "Brown Paper Bag",
      "artist": "Roni Size / Reprazent",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/roni-size-reprazent/",
      "year": 1997,
      "label": "Talkin' Loud",
      "isrc": "GBF089700307",
      "whyItMatters": "The double bass line that carried drum and bass to the Mercury Prize and a general audience without softening a single edge of the drum programming.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-the-hundred",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-the-hundred/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Roni%20Size%20%2F%20Reprazent%20Brown%20Paper%20Bag",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=cwI0gbGEyuI",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 6,
      "trackKey": "photek--ni-ten-ichi-ryu",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/photek--ni-ten-ichi-ryu/",
      "title": "Ni Ten Ichi Ryu",
      "artist": "Photek",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/photek/",
      "year": 1997,
      "label": "Science",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Drum programming as swordsmanship. Photek treated the breakbeat as pure percussion sculpture, and no producer since has matched this level of rhythmic detail per bar.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Photek%20Ni%20Ten%20Ichi%20Ryu",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/search?q=Photek%20Ni%20Ten%20Ichi%20Ryu",
          "exact": false
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 7,
      "trackKey": "alex-reece--pulp-fiction",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/alex-reece--pulp-fiction/",
      "title": "Pulp Fiction",
      "artist": "Alex Reece",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/alex-reece/",
      "year": 1995,
      "label": "Metalheadz",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "The moment the two-step beat arrived and the genre stopped running. Half the tempo in feel, all of it in fact — a rhythmic trick that reshaped everything that followed.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Alex%20Reece%20Pulp%20Fiction",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=ZERy52yX6rg",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 8,
      "trackKey": "dillinja--the-angels-fell",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/dillinja--the-angels-fell/",
      "title": "The Angels Fell",
      "artist": "Dillinja",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/dillinja/",
      "year": 1995,
      "label": "Metalheadz",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Dillinja's bass weight is the reference standard, and this is the track where the sub stops being an accompaniment and becomes the lead instrument.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Dillinja%20The%20Angels%20Fell",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=5vS50pPKv-U",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 9,
      "trackKey": "4hero--mr-kirks-nightmare",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/4hero--mr-kirks-nightmare/",
      "title": "Mr Kirk's Nightmare",
      "artist": "4hero",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/4hero/",
      "year": 1990,
      "label": "Reinforced",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Predates the genre proper and contains its DNA anyway: a sampled police death notification over hardcore breaks. The dread that jungle inherited starts here.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "dancing-to-bad-news",
          "name": "Dancing to Bad News",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/dancing-to-bad-news/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/4hero%20Mr%20Kirk's%20Nightmare",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/search?q=4hero%20Mr%20Kirk's%20Nightmare",
          "exact": false
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 10,
      "trackKey": "adam-f--circles",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/adam-f--circles/",
      "title": "Circles",
      "artist": "Adam F",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/adam-f/",
      "year": 1995,
      "label": "Section 5",
      "isrc": "GBAYE9701340",
      "whyItMatters": "Jazz-inflected, immaculately mixed, and the record most often used to prove to sceptics that drum and bass is composed music rather than assembled music.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Adam%20F%20Circles",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=1dUi19BDzbg",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 11,
      "trackKey": "ed-rush-and-optical--bacteria",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/ed-rush-and-optical--bacteria/",
      "title": "Bacteria",
      "artist": "Ed Rush & Optical",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/ed-rush-and-optical/",
      "year": 1998,
      "label": "Virus",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Techstep at its most malevolent. Distorted, mechanical and airless — this is the sound that pushed the genre out of jazz clubs and into something genuinely frightening.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Ed%20Rush%20%26%20Optical%20Bacteria",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=2J0PiJBgLmg",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 12,
      "trackKey": "high-contrast--return-of-forever",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/high-contrast--return-of-forever/",
      "title": "Return of Forever",
      "artist": "High Contrast",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/high-contrast/",
      "year": 2002,
      "label": "Hospital",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Liquid funk's finest hour. Soul samples and euphoric strings over rolling drums, made with enough craft to escape the sentimentality the style usually invites.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/High%20Contrast%20Return%20of%20Forever",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jlr0ie0vt4",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 13,
      "trackKey": "pendulum--tarantula",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/pendulum--tarantula/",
      "title": "Tarantula",
      "artist": "Pendulum",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/pendulum/",
      "year": 2005,
      "label": "Breakbeat Kaos",
      "isrc": "GBKBH0502208",
      "whyItMatters": "The pivot to stadium drum and bass, for better and worse. Purists winced, but the production ambition here pulled a generation of new listeners into the genre.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Pendulum%20Tarantula",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=oCxcIROTabw",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 14,
      "trackKey": "sub-focus--timewarp",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/sub-focus--timewarp/",
      "title": "Timewarp",
      "artist": "Sub Focus",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/sub-focus/",
      "year": 2009,
      "label": "RAM",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Sound design as songwriting. Every element is synthetic and every one of them hooks — the cleanest demonstration of what modern studio technique brought to the form.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Sub%20Focus%20Timewarp",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=d4iYglrXBtE",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 15,
      "trackKey": "noisia--machine-gun",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/noisia--machine-gun/",
      "title": "Machine Gun",
      "artist": "Noisia",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/noisia/",
      "year": 2010,
      "label": "Division / mau5trap",
      "isrc": "NLCK41002420",
      "whyItMatters": "Neurofunk's technical ceiling. The bass is processed past the point of recognition into something percussive and physical, and it still grooves.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Noisia%20Machine%20Gun",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=pBlu0Sbj6Ao",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}