Bassline/4x4, the dance genre birthed in the North of England in the early 2000s, saw its peak around 2007-2009, when club Niche in Sheffield would be packed out every weekend and the likes of T2 and DJ Q were blessing up the charts. Nowadays, a lot of the musicality in bassline—the sweet-sounding flutes, the skippy drum work—has been overtaken by ground-opening bass pressure which, for some, works, and for others makes them reminisce on the bubbly, skanks-inducing bounce of yesteryear.
Sheffield's K Dot and Birmingham's Trilla and Bomma B are three MCs who blew up during said peak—whose excitable, rave-ready rhymes afforded them a career outside of bassline when the scene went quiet as the 2010s kicked in. After recently hitting up BBC Radio 1Xtra for a bassline special, they decided to work on some music together, first on "As Per" (alongside Tez Kidd, AK, Asher and SG) and now on "Ya Fool", another rowdy outing produced by J69.
K Dot told Complex via email that "J69 made this track straight after the bassline 1Xtra takeover and I knew straight away when I heard it, the potential it had to do something mad with it; three bassline legends on one track, which will hopefully kickstart the 4x4 sound again in 2020. Not just with these raves that have been going on, but the music to match."
Listen to "Ya Fool" exclusively below.
