Sonic Evolution: Justice for Dubstep

The 90s produced a lot of things: Tamagotchi’s, Blockbuster, tattoo chokers and lest we forget the unrivalled music scene, especially in the UK. From the Spice Girls to Oasis, to the underground rave culture at the Hacienda and beyond - music was in its prime emerging out of the ashes of the 80s. The 90s were the golden age for electronic music and UK garage, with tracks like ‘Closer Than Close’ (Rosie Gaines), ‘Sincere’ (MJ Cole) and ‘Teardrops’ (Lovestation) the decade provided an abundance of talent and opportunity.

While the turn of the millennium was characterised by pop princesses flooding the charts like the Sugababes, Atomic Kitten and Destiny’s Child… the underground world of dubstep was budding behind closed doors which would come to its summit in the late 00s and early 10s.

Dubstep’s lineage comes from the 90s UK garage scene. Much like 2-step, dub jungle, broken beats and grime, these subgenres emerged from variations of the garage’s four-on-the-floor rhythm pattern. Dubstep was different to garage though because the drumbeat was irregular, more akin to 2-step.

Dubstep is typically a syncopated rhythm with a tempo of 138-142 bpm, characteristically with a kick on the 1st and a clap/snare on the 3rd. By skipping over the four-beat bass pattern producers can use shuffle percussion to give a more unpredictable sound, and a wobbling bassline, as Skream’s 2006 ‘Midnight Request Line’ demonstrates.

Dubstep gained its name from the history and methodology of dub growing from reggae in Jamacia: In the 1960s original reggae began to get reworked, with an emphasis being the drums. King Tubby is one of the originators of dub, ‘flag dub’ is a perfect example of dub’s emergence from reggae. Dub was not just the creation of a new genre from remixing the old, dub became a methodology of music production in which tracks were manipulated and formulated focusing on their drum rhythms. So, while electronic music of the 00s was sonically very different to reggae and dub, through the same methodology electronic music was developing its garage predecessor through reverb, echo, and sound manipulation. So just as dub emerged from reggae the genre of dubstep was from garage, hence its name.

Despite the genre’s birthplace in South London, the genre expanded riding the waves of the newly available internet… the dubstepforum became a popular place to discuss and share new music, meanwhile, barefiles.com enabled to streaming of dubstep freely online. The internet also gave rise to the blog culture of the 2000s, so music bloggers were fast to report on the unchallenged rise of dubstep.

While sweaty teens in fluorescent slogan shirts and shutter glasses are a far cry from the sincerity of high fashion in 2022, EDM and dubstep had the population in rapture. The subgenre was used in advertisements such as Weetabix, Coke and the Microsoft Surface to the iconic soundtrack of the 2007-2013 series Skins which featured lots of Dizzee Rascal. Pirate radio stations began playing dubstep which allowed for recognition from official stations like BBC Radio 1 and Rinse FM. Mary Anne Hobbs’ ‘Dubstep Warz’ became a popular 2006 element to her show.

(Skepta at FWD>> At Plastic People)

Dubstep developed simultaneous to other emerging genres from the 90s scene, for instance, early grime like Wiley and Skepta, which was also characterised by its high bpm. JME’s 2008 album ‘Famous?’ may sound like a sonic universe from stereotypical dubstep like NERO, but you can still hear its influence, in particular ‘Ghetto Superstar’ and ‘P’.

Dubstep began to spill onto the international arena in the late 00s, with the United States claiming their own take on the genre. American dubstep was characteristically heavier and more metal-inspired than the original minimal dubstep being produced in the early days in the UK. Original dubstep like Burial was being transformed into subgenres inspired by electro-house which emphasised the build-up and the drop of the track. Contrasting Skrillex’s ‘Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites’ with early Benga like ‘26 basslines’ is interesting because it demonstrates the versatility of the genre.

This adaptability is what enabled dubstep to go mainstream, for instance, Britney Spear’s ‘Freakshow’ tests positive for dubstep inspiration and also Justin Bieber’s ‘As Long As You Love Me’, with Big Sean. Considering in 2012 Skrillex was winning 3 Grammys it is unsurprising that popular music wanted a foot in the genre’s popularity. 2011 was characterised by dubstep from the likes of Au5, Spaces Laces, Bar9, Plastician, Dillon Francis, Rusko and Kode9.

However, after dubstep’s peak in 2011/12 by 2014 the genre was notably ‘in decline’. I would argue this pattern recounts the genre becoming less visible and more integrated:

The accessibility of electronic music meant that the scene was being saturated by amateur producers using online software, moreover streaming pirate music. While originally dubstep was being championed for its availability, the DIY mantra of the movement amassed hostility between the harmlessness of at-home experimental music production and the music industry. Dubstep was heavily criticised in the early 10s for this aspect of its demographic.

Dubstep’s deities began to move away from the genre, with Skrillex producing more house music and Skream now producing a lot of techno under Alan Fitzpatrick’s record label. Mount Kimbie and James Blake also have begun exploring wider genre possibilities expanding dubstep. Dubstep is now often umbrellaed under the term bass which can account for integrated dubstep into funk, house, hip hop, and bassline. However, producers such as Chase & Status, Hybrid Minds and Knife Party bare their roots in dubstep’s ethos.

(Drumz of the South: The Early Dubstep Photography, Georgina Cook)

The list of subgenres to dubstep is endless, I will name a few to demonstrate: EDM Trap, Filth, Dubchestral (Draeden), Chillstep (Naph, Samba) Drumstep (RIOT, Topi), Dubcore (CaptainSparklez, Camellia), Deathstep (Code: Pandorum), Halfstep, Glitch, Gorestep, Future dubstep (Leotrix, Kaijo, Voltra, Octane), Animestep (said), Brostep (The Frim), Briddim (Excision, Wooli, Virtual Riot, PhaseOne, Snails, SVDDEN DEATH), Brazilian dubstep (Gladez).

Over the past few years, electronic music has surged, with sites like SoundCloud being the preferred streaming platform for many. The technicalities of the music industry such as copywrites and the financial barriers to entry limiting streaming mean the origins of EDM and dubstep remain relevant to amateurs who want to experiment with sound manipulation freely. Likewise, the pandemic has catalysed these homemade cyclical trends as we found ourselves locked away for the best party of 2 years aimlessly searching for some occupation. I personally see amateur DJing and producing as a positive thing, to expand and learn within the community and to avoid the monopolising of an industry by bureaucratic labels.

The question of whether dub is dead is simple: no - rather dubstep has been adapted and transformed, just as the genre itself was an iteration. I think the underlying grounds of dubstep in most electronic music whether that’s house, techno, or DnB means that it is alive more than ever. In the US the EDM scene remains huge and there is a popularity for Trap Dub, meanwhile in Europe Tomorrowland festival remains as elusive to get tickets for as Glastonbury.

I also think the trend of cyber techno and gabber-esque galactic funk (I have no clue what kind of name to give this realm) should be accredited to dubstep roots of erratic beat patterns and electronic foundations – for instance DJ これからの緊急災, Amadeezy and KETTAMA.