From underground clubs in London’s Shoreditch community and the town of Croydon in the United Kingdom to soundtracking global TV commercials and allowing groundbreaking producers to win Grammy Awards, dubstep has had quite the incredible journey as a sound and cultural movement since its early 2000s inception. With roots in reggae, dub and dancehall, house music and occurring simultaneously with the grime-rap-loving U.K. garage and two-step movement, dubstep, now embodied by producers like Rusko, Skrillex and others, is not a huge genre leap for fans of rap music to make.
Dubstep’s appeal is intrinsically linked to being played in dance clubs, which, given that rap music has evolved into being such a top-40-friendly sound, actually limited the genre’s initial growth outside of its English roots as most dance venues were equipped to handle brash and loud sounds with weighty basslines, which actually compare not so favorably to dubstep’s governing low-end theories.
Thus, similar to rap’s evolution, the sound went underground, as from New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Houston, L.A., Seattle, Portland and other U.S. locales, dubstep slowly left its U.K. beginnings and slowly evolved. Again, like hip-hop culture, the notion of dancing to sounds that oftentimes were not as melody based, lacked tempo shifts and focused quite heavily on the bottom end of the sonic spectrum bore skepticism as to the sound’s eventual growth. Slow development in this aim was aided by the process starting roughly a year ago of U.S. promoters regularly booking top U.K. dubstep names like Kode9, Skream and Benga to augment a growing set of U.S. names. In a manner similar to West Coast rappers like Ice-T appearing on billings with New York City rap stalwarts Run-DMC by the mid-1980s, the tactic allowed the genre’s popularity to spread quickly.
By the time that U.K. dubstepper Rusko released his original single “Cockney Thug” and a remix to Kid Sister’s “Pro Nails” in 2009, an iteration of dubstep that had far more pop and crossover appeal than the traditional wholly dub reggae and dancehall style of before became popular. In simply wobbling the once static basslines on dubstep tracks, Rusko opened the door to dubstep’s global growth but also may have created a game of “can you top this?”
Just as with rap music, dubstep’s mainstreaming has seen the sound mold in shape and form to latch onto every musical type imaginable. In bearing such a strong similarity to rap music in this sense, the following list makes sense insofar as rap and dubstep are pretty much musical cousins from different shores.
Essential Album #1: Mad Decent, Blow Your Head Vol. 1 - Diplo Presents Dubstep
As a rap fanatic, let’s presume that your introduction to dubstep is likely linked to U.K. producer Rusko and U.S. producer Skrillex blowing up in the indie mainstream in 2010. Never ones not to capitalize on a trend, Diplo and Mad Decent Records compiled an “essential” list of what tend to be pop-urban listener-friendly dubstep sounds in the same year, thus making it a great place to begin. Names like Doctor P (“Sweet Shop”), Rusko (“Cockney Thug” and “Hold On”) 12th Planet and Flinch (the super-soulful collaboration with vocalist Little Jinder for “Youth Blood”), Benga (the wobbly and break-beat driven “26 Basslines”) and Datsik (who turns Diplo and Lil Jon’s bombastic “U Don’t Like Me” into a hip-hop flavored remix owing a tremendous amount to lasers and a sound akin to the game “Space Invaders") are present here, the cream of pop-dubstep’s early crop. With labels like legendary dubstep imprint Tempa Records, as well as American standard bearers Mad Decent and Brooklyn’s Trouble and Bass, plus Doctor P and Flux Pavillion’s U.K.-based label Circus Records, top labels with significant genre releases are represented here too. If looking for a baseline place at which to begin your journey into the depths of heavy bass music, there’s likely no better place for a rap fan coming to dubstep to start.
Essential Album #2: Skream, Skream!
Skream’s trek through the dubstep scene has been interesting, to say the least. At the age of 19 he’d released one of dubstep’s most crossover tracks, “Midnight Request Line,” and was very instrumental in the dubstep explosion in 2005. He was part of the seminal “Dubstep Warz” broadcast on Mary Anne Hobbs’ BBC Radio 1 show in 2006, and later that year he dropped his debut album, Skream! on Tempa, the imprint that put out “Midnight Request Line” amongst a number of Skream’s earlier works. On Skream!, you get the dubbier side of Skream’s production. Stretched over nine tracks (eight originals and one remix of “Midnight Request Line” via Digital Mystikz), Skream blends an emphasis on bass with live instrumentation, the best of which is found on “Rutten,” featuring Adrian Revell on the flute. The foundation of dubstep is there, with sneaky glimpses of where the scene would progress.
Idol: Joe Nice
Baltimore-based DJ Joe Nice is better known as “the American ambassador of dubstep.” After having heard dubstep for the first time at the Starscape Festival in 2002, Nice replaced the work that he had been doing in Baltimore club with progressive explorations into dubplate culture. One of the first Americans to spin the sound significantly in the United States, his co-founding of the Dub War party in New York City allowed for key foreign-based dubstep producers and DJs like Hatcha, Youngsta, Kode9, Mala and Loefah to make their U.S. debuts. Furthermore, when considering that his influence spread nationwide and globally, it’s entirely possible that without his influence, important dubstep scenes in Northern and Southern California, plus the American Midwest and South, would have taken much longer to gain traction and support. Still accessing rare dubplates and spinning sets that showcase his charisma and skill as a selector in now upward of 30-plus countries worldwide, though not a producer, Nice’s ability to spot a hit and foster a scene are important. As a rap fanatic and likely core dubstep culture outlier, Nice’s ability to maintain the genre’s classic inspirations in the modern age make his sets must-listen experiences.
Essential Producer #1: Flux Pavillion
Yes, he’s the man whose 2010-released single “I Can’t Stop” became immortalized as dubstep-to-rap’s most important crossover moment-to-date when used over a dubstep-inspired bridge on Kanye West and Jay Z’s single “Who Gon Stop Me” from the duo’s 2011 collaborative album, Watch The Throne. With six years of experience as a DJ/producer/artist, he’s released EPs with rap-inspired Canadian producers Datsik and Excision, and his Major Lazer collaboration “Jah No Partial” may be one of dubstep’s rowdiest pop moments, owing as much of its success to its recalling of dancehall culture as to the tempo-shifting stadium rave vibes of the track. If you are looking for unassailably great touchstone moments in dubstep’s modern history, Flux certainly has more than a few of the best.
Essential Producer #2: 12th Planet
With over a decade of experience as a producer and nearing a decade of work in making dubstep, SMOG Records head and Los Angeles-based DJ/producer 12th Planet is one of dubstep’s most essential names to both follow and respect. From essentially founding Los Angeles’ dubstep scene to perpetually touring with the likes of top names like Skrillex, the man born John Dadzie is perpetually in motion and pushing dubstep forward. Whether collaborating with rising producers like Datsik, Atlanta’s Mayhem, San Francisco’s Antiserum, Los Angeles’ Protohype, London’s Plastician, remixing tracks alongside frequent collaborator Flinch or producing tracks like 2012-released “Burst,” a swagged out, low-key and dub-driven master stroke of hip-hop meeting dubstep with Skrillex and Kill the Noise, 12th Planet is always at the core of all things in the sound and, thus, is essential to know.
The Hang Out: DMZ at Mass London
Supported by Mary Anne Hobbes’ then-underground station RinseFM, the FWD» party at Shoreditch’s Plastic People was established in 2005 at DMZ at Mass London. FWD» party’s regular selectors Mala, Coki and Loefah’s takes on dubstep were gaining global favor, bringing out upward of 1,200 people from all over the world to one space at one time. With nine years of memories, the body-pounding and bass-heavy sound’s global point of emanation may not necessarily have always been considered to be Skrillex’s laptop at Coachella but rather somewhere a bit less mainstream.
Essential Clothing Item: Skrillex's Black T-Shirt
Unlike other U.K.-born dance sounds, dubstep is certainly not a fashion-forward or even ironically fashion-trending scene. However, scene-mainstreaming global pop superstar Skrillex is perpetually rocking what could easily be the exact same black T-shirt in a great percentage of his sets, and in this being the case, it’s as iconic of a fashion statement as dubstep can make. If you're a rap fanatic wanting some sort of jiggy fashion scene to get down with, you’re definitely about 10 years too late in U.K.’s dance history. 1990s-popular U.K. garage could be described as uptown disco to dubstep’s downtown punk rock, fashion shows in the club as important as the soulful vocals wrapping themselves around the two-stepping and oftentimes stylistically hip-hop influenced beats.
Overrated: Rusko
For as much as Rusko’s breakout with tracks like “Cockney Thug” “Woo Boost,” “Hold On” and “Everyday” signaled dubstep’s charge into the mainstream, it was arguably his employment of wobbling basslines that opened the door to experimentation with the genre’s dub reggae roots leading to the invasive and hard electro-influenced style known as “brostep” with which the "dubstep" sound has become so closely associated. Rusko produced tracks for acts like Britney Spears, stretching dubstep’s established underground boundaries to an uncomfortable point. Rusko described his January 2014 Sunshower EP as “not dubstep or drum and bass” but instead as an attempt to “create five fun tracks that fit into no genre—or maybe a whole new genre altogether.” As the name-brand artist for the genre for quite some time, Rusko's path feels depressing, unfortunate and potentially harmful to his legacy overall.
Festival: Outlook Festival
Billed as “Europe’s leading bass music and soundsystem culture festival,” Outlook Festival enters its seventh year taking over the beachfront campsite at Fort Punta Christo in Pula, Croatia. Dubstep is but one of many bass-heavy and underground-friendly sounds at the festival, including rap, techno, reggae, garage and grime. The 15,000-plus attendee event takes place from September 3-7 this year, and with veteran dubstep names Roska, Swindle, Youngsta, Loefah, Mala, Coki and others joining a plethora of acts from a multitude of genres, including rap acts Busta Rhymes, Ms. Lauryn Hill and DJ Premier, if you are a rap fanatic looking to blend some dubstep with your boom bap, this is likely an incredible event and space in which to consider doing so.