Thnk ahead just 50 years, perhaps, to the day when everyone will appreciate the nuances of electronic music”
… dreaming of a future sound-scape of London”
-What The Future Sounded Like
Electronic music pioneers in the mid 20th century invented the tools that are now so ubiquitous that they have a profound effect on the sound pop music today. This short documentary on London’s EMS (Electronic Music Studios) presents an informative overview of developments durring the post-WWII era and beyond.
This post is inspired by a step-steeped day I had recently. While I was getting ready to head out for a night of dubSTEP with Caspa at Bass Goes Boom I was listening to the radio and learned that there’s a dance style called Chicago STEPping.
Chicago stepping is a name given to a dance that has evolved over the years from various other dances. Originally created in Chicago’s predominately African American neighborhoods, the dance has morphed from its beginnings with the Jitterbug in the 30s and 40s, to the Offtime in the 50s, to the Walk and the Chicago Bop in the 60s and 70s.
This revelation came on top of the fact that there’s a style of reggae called STEPpers which has been around at least since the ’70s.
In Steppers, the bass drum plays four solid beats to the bar, giving the beat an insistent drive. An example is “Exodus” by Bob Marley and the Wailers. Another common name for the Steppers beat is the “four on the floor”.
As far as I know there are no ties between Chicago stepping and steppers reggae, except that disco had a large influence on both.
Steppers reggae, especially ‘80/’90s U.K. steppers dub by artists like Iration Steppers, the Deciples, Alpha & Omega, etc., has a much closer connection to dubstep. This track by Alpha & Omega has a classic steppers sound:
This dubstep track by Skream has the steppers-reggae feel too:
Iration Steppers Live Video:
When I played at the Glade Festival in England last summer I noticed some of the sound-systems mixing up dubstep and more traditional steppers reggae. In fact, this mix by Skream from September, ‘06 is a good example:
One of the aspects of dubstep that holds my attention is that there are so many influences at work on the various tentacles of the genre. Sometimes you can hear the strong U.K.-garage influence, other times drum-n-bass, and quite often reggae, dub, soca, dancehall, and steppers.
This was a #5 hit, and a #1 dance hit in the U.S. in 1993. Is it just me, or is she a little flat on some of those notes? That’s a whole other topic. The point here is that there was another top 10 hit in the U.S. 4 years later, also called Show Me Love and also by someone called Robyn (different spelling but…). This one was #7 on the U.S. charts in 1997:
Can anyone fill me in on how this happened? Did the Swedish pop singer Robyn know that the Queens, NY-based house diva of virtually the same name had a hit by the exact same name only 4 years earlier?
Moving on: According to an article in Wired magazine comparing Robyn and Britney:
Imagine, if you will, a parallel universe where a pretty blonde pop star can actually carry a tune, writes her own songs, and frets over artistic integrity. In this universe, when her record company demands more hits, she tells them to shove it and starts her own label. There’s no making out with Madonna, no messy divorce, no custody battle, no 5150. Instead there’s bankable talent and a credible, long-arc career. In other words, it’s the anti-Britney Spears. Meet Robyn, the 28-year-old Swedish singer whose latest U.S. release drops in April. In the mid-’90s, both were courted by the same big label to be molded into the Next Big Thing: Robyn said no. Britney said yes. It was the first choice of many… that would lead one to hipster stardom and the other to madness.
Fast forward to 2007:
Robyn; Konichiwa Bitches
Hmm! Notice in the beginning when she’s trying to tell the monkey what beat he should play, she goes “uh uh … ih … uh uh … ih”? Kinda reminds me of this one from ‘03:
M.I.A.; Galang
That’s really just a reggaeton riddim innit? Perhaps the one Robyn was beatboxing in her video is more of a classic dancehall beat but Konichiwa Bitches reminds me of M.I.A.’s work in general.
The Galang video in turn reminds me of another classic (#3 on the U.S. charts in 1988):
Neneh Cherry; Buffalo Stance
Since M.I.A. hit the scene it seems to me that more than a few “blond pop stars” have become rappers:
Gwen Stefani; Hollaback Girl
And:
Fergie; London Bridge
And yup, even Britney herself is a rapper now. What’s more interesting about the tune in the video below though, is the “wub” bassline so popular in underground genres such as dubstep these days:
Britney Spears; Freakshow
Yeah, I would say that track is pretty hot. Not sayin’ Britney’s hot, just the track. It’s produced by Bloodshy & Avant who also produced Britney’s bollywood-inspired hit single, Toxic a few years ago:
Britney Spears: Toxic
I can’t end this piece without mentioning that the Queen of Pop herself, Madonna, has now entered the fold. She’s not exactly rapping but the producer of this track, Timbaland kind of is:
Madonna; 4 Minutes
Both the track and the video kind of blow (what is this, a move soundtrack or something?!). I realize it’s excruciating to watch, but the best part’s actually at the very end when Timbaland’s beats get stripped down to their classic rawness (Oh Timba, what happened! heyy!)
Lets end this on a positive note, going back to the old-school, or at least the golden-age, before M.I.A., before Robin S., even before Neneh Cherry, to a time when rappers rarely had blond hair unless it was bleached — 1986:
First up, for all who haven’t seen this: Google Maps Drug Deal! Right here in beautiful Chicago, Illinois. There’s a license plate number and everything. Here’s a screen shot, for when Google eventually gets this removed.
There are all sorts of webbernets nerds buzzing about this pic and how it relates to our PRIVACY and PERSONAL FREEDOM and OMGZ GOOGLE IS TAKING OVER OUR LIVES and BIG BROTHER and all that, but really I think all that can be avoided by operating on a simple principle that has served me well throughout the years: “don’t sell drugs in the street when a car covered in cameras rolls by”.
In related news, Dizzee Rascal has a new video, with Bun B from UGK. It’s called “Where Da G’s”, and it’s filmed in Houston, and it’s all about what an accomplished crack dealer Dizzee Rascal & Bun B are, and how you (and all those other “fake” rappers) claim to be accomplished crack dealers when you really aren’t. It’s full of shots of a specifically American vision of ghetto life: windowless bungalows with spacious, grassless lawns; giant American hoopties; craps games; etc. Take a look:
I find this pretty revolting for a few reasons:
1) Could Dizzee possibly be trying any harder to blow up in America? This really looks painfully forced..it reminds me of when The Prodigy came out with Firestarter.
2) Maybe this makes me a bigot (or maybe I’m just rooting for the home team), but I just absolutely refuse to believe that any Englishman is as hard as your worst (or even average) American thug. I’m not saying that the British are weaklings or anything, and I certainly don’t think American gangsters are the toughest on earth, but the very fact that Dizzee talks about KNIFING somebody in his track is telling–KNIFING somebody? really? Stabbing is a crime for hoboes, prison inmates, and Europeans–here in the western hemisphere we SHOOT people, thank you kindly.
3) COKE RAPS ARE SO PLAYED OUT. Can we pleeeease PLEEEEEEEEASE move on to an era where hip hop is either a) dead or b) interesting again or at the very least c) not ethically reprehensible? Don’t get me wrong, I have always been one of those bleeding heart free speech ultra-liberals who thinks crack should be legal and people should be able to say just about anything in any format they want (including on radio, FCC guys) and I’ve always laughed at the crusty right-wing culture terrorists who think that rap and video games are the downfall of society, but at a certain point I have to admit that songs like this fall into the same category as torture in films and television–certainly these artforms are reflections of endemic problems with our society, but at the same time they are helping to glorify and lionize a lot of harmful, dangerous, and unethical behaviors, and I can’t help but believe that an absence of such treatments of this subject matter in hip hop would be a positive thing.
I know, I know, I can’t stop writing about these guys, but they’re MY BABY! (read: my conflict of interest.)
They’ve got a brand spankin’ new video that just debuted on p-fork, and I think it’s pretty great. Here’s the Pitchfork link, but I’ll go ahead and embed the video here too:
/rupture scooped this one. Our old friend and comrade in Toneburst, Rafi B and his band Fosforo drops what I assume is the first cumbia campaign song for Obama.
MashitTube
In our ongoing quest to expand our media empire we’ve updated our Video page to include channels like Baltimore, Classic Jungle, Creative Commons, Dubstep, Juke, Mashup, Psychedelic, and more. You can now waste hours channel-surfing MashitTube rather than those other, less interesting media outlets.
In further celebration of Jungle’s 15th birthday, Here’s the Classic Jungle channel. Check out the 2 part documentary on early jungle called A London Something.
MashitMerch We’d also like to point you to the MashitMerch shop. If you need a sweatshirt, a thong, a wall clock, or a lunch box, and at the same time would like to help support Mashit’s brand of super-sonic sound, extreme genre-blends, downloadable dubplates, and bounce-mixology, you’ve found just the place to feed two birds with one scone ->
… dreaming of a future sound-scape of London”
This post is inspired by a step-steeped day I had recently. While I was getting ready to head out for a night of dubSTEP with 
First up, for all who haven’t seen this: 
I know, I know, I can’t stop writing about these guys, but they’re MY BABY! (read: my conflict of interest.)
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