This is True Brit, an education in Britain’s pop and subcultures, its spirit and invention, the authentic and real British experience – not a pastiche or cliché one assumed by our friends across the world.
This week: the Lacoste-laden, corrugated warehouse-rattling, sweat drenched, Northern brother of dance music – Bassline.
I can say with my chest that Britain birthed the most important genres in dance music. It’s an undeniable fact. Call me stubborn all you want.
Before Dubstep, Garage and all other British bass-fuelled musical counterparts there was Bleep – aka ‘Bleeps n Bass’ – the equivalent of the big bang in the UK dance scene. Bleep threw the origins of US house and techno and eclectically paired it with the current British sound system culture during the late 80s.
It was a northern mutation, intended for the club and was so heavily bass driven it would brutally rattle the corrugate lined warehouses of Sheffield and Leeds.
During the early 90s British dance music evolved at an unfathomable rate, with drum’n’bass and Jungle suddenly emerging from underground lairs all over the country.
Whilst Bleep absorbed the sounds of Detroit and Chicago the new UK Dance genres had one place to thank for its existence. That place was … Jamaica. With the arrival of the HMT Windrush in 1948 to 1973 to the UK, Jamaican people would slowly settle across the UK, bringing their robust sound with them.
For me it is entirely problematic to attach a timeline to UK dance music from Bleeps to UK Garage, and there are standout tracks that help us to imagine a pathway to emerging subgenres.
Photo: Beth Lesser
With Dubstep emerging in the mid 2000s, a sound that originally arose from Dub and Garage, the north had their own thing going on. A wild, sunglass sporting, Lacoste laden, cheeky northern brother named Bassline.
It’s the early 2000s and UK Garage is still in full effect. MJ Cole and Groove Chronicles are being pumped from questionable custom Peugeot 206s up and down the country. Whilst the likes of ‘Re-Rewind’ and ‘Do you really like it?’ are gracing the UK charts it was time for the underground to rise up again – it was the turn for UK Bassline.
Clubbers inside Niche (Photo: nichebackintheday.com)
Unlike other UK dance subcultures Bassline has a clear birthplace and home: Niche Nightclub, a rough and ready multi room warehouse in Sheffield. As raving became increasingly commercial Garage fans were demanding something new and unprocessed, so in reaction to that DJ’s sped up the BPM and distorted the more accessible basslines into a distinctively twisted and distorted new sound.
It was garage on speed, mixed with bright blue WKDs and bootleg designer apparel.
Producer/DJs such as Jamie Duggan, DJ Q and Nastee Boi pioneered the sound of Bassline alongside a roster of other northern talent, it soon established itself as a gun finger pointing bass wobbling riot that belonged exclusively in the north. Whilst grime was very much a ‘London thing’, Bassline became an inherently northern movement and Niche was the only place on Fridays and Saturday for the true diehard skankers.
Originally named ‘Niche’, Bassline attracted girls, gangs and drugs; sports cars lined the streets of Sheffield as hundreds of ravers bounced to the infectious warped basslines. It was a ‘Bad man’ genre but at the heart of it there were girly garage vocals that were effectively intertwined with relentlessly aggressive bass.
The dancefloors were dominated by unruly styles of dance, lads would shamelessly invent unusual moves in smoked out venues whilst barely being able see through their tinted sunglasses. Whilst the girls modelled tight dresses and hot pants they seductively whined as they clutched their designer bags as the sweat unglamorously dripped benetah the low ceilings.Â
Every night would outdo the next as areas like Dewsbury and Bradford were soon hosts to this wild yet freeing movement. It was dirty and brazen, nothing mattered once you were inside, whether it was your race or where you were from you just had to be with it.
As Bassline became big business, trouble soon followed. In 2005, the police raided Niche due to a stream of gun related crimes and increased gang activity. However fun and carefree the culture may have been there was no denying that the raves attracted some of the north’s most notorious gangs.
As Bassline became an exceedingly problematic genre to promote nothing stopped the progress of the music, producers such as T2 and DJQ surprisingly found mainstream success, and all of a sudden the whole of UK was listening in. T2’s ‘Heartbroken’ to many sounded just like a UK Garage revival until the unmistakable Bassline wobble kicked in. Released in 2007 it was the first time many heard Bassline.
One of those unpredictable overnight success stories, it became the most requested track on BBC Radio 1, and then soon found global chart success from Belgium to Ireland. Producer T2 was a household name in the Yorkshire Bassline scene, but for Bassline to enter the charts was a feat that no one had previously thought possible.
Whilst the original ravers became sick of the track the rest of the UK had been rudely awoken to the unique blend of Jodie Aysha’s sweet vocals and T2’s unforgettable belligerent Bassline hook. I was just a teenager so hadn’t heard of Bassline prior to this, so this was admittedly my – and most of Southern England’s – entry point.
I can never really get my head around that only a few hundred miles separate underground British dance movements. At the time little did us Londoners know as we turned up the latest Wiley, Bashy and Skepta tracks that there was a whole other riotous world of UK urban music existing up north. T2’s ‘Heartbroken’ wasn’t the only mainstream success as Platinum’s summer banger ‘What’s It Gonna Be’ and DJ Q’s ‘You Wot’ both reached the dizzy heights of the UK charts.Â
Although Bassline had reached its pinnacle the scene was dying a slow sad death. Northern clubs refused to host Bassline nights and many of the first ravers had grown older and grew out of their old antics.
Bassline was over before 2010 and was only really played ironically within DJ sets; ravers were simply left to fantasise about their 7am exits at Niche. But UK dance music always has a funny way of making a resurgence.
Around 2018, when Generation Z rediscovered Bassline for all its bouncing-bass-wobbling- quirks, it was back in the clubs to stay. Of course it wasn’t as savage and risky as the Niche golden years, but the youth were once again celebrating British rave culture in all its glory.
The likes of Bassline’s originators Jamie Duggan, BurgaBoy and TS7 were in demand once again and tearing up clubs nationwide to a hungry new generation. Whilst it still remains a fairly underground revival one sound clip would accidentally take the sound of Bassline global – this time on TikTok.
DJ Q mid-set
I’m sorry for even mentioning TikTok but it has to be addressed for this story to make sense. In 2020 British viral star Millie B, a mischievous teenage girl famed for ‘beefing’ Blackpool rap rival Sophie Aspin released her diss track ‘M to the B’. Whilst I still don’t really get how TikTok works, this track that featured an old school Bassline instrumental was subsequently sampled in millions of cringe worthy TikTok’s online.
The majority of TikTok-kers had never heard the sinister warps of bassline and soon the track was littered throughout the social media megasphere.
The way in which music revives itself through kooky internet trends will endlessly perplex me. But here we are, 20 years later and Bassline is here to stay alongside its peculiar extended family, Dubstep, Garage, Jungle and Drum’n’bass.
