- published: 30 May 2012
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UK garage (also known as UKG) is a genre of electronic music originating from the United Kingdom in the early 1990s. The genre usually features a distinctive syncopated 4/4 percussive rhythm with 'shuffling' hi-hats and beat-skipping kick drums. Garage tracks also commonly feature 'chopped up' and time-shifted or pitch-shifted vocal samples complementing the underlying rhythmic structure at a tempo usually around 130 BPM. UK garage was largely subsumed into other styles of music and production in the mid-2000s, including dubstep, bassline and grime. The decline of UK garage during the mid-2000s saw the birth of UK funky, which is closely related.
The evolution of house music in the United Kingdom in the mid-1990s led to the term, as previously coined by the Paradise Garage DJs, being applied to a new form of music also known speed garage. Its originator is widely recognised to be Todd Edwards, the American house and garage producer, also known as Todd "The God" Edwards. In the early nineties, Edwards began to start remixing more soulful house records and incorporating more time-shifts and vocal samples than normal house records, whilst still living in the US. However, it was not until DJ EZ, the North London DJ, acquired one of Edwards' tracks and played it at a faster tempo in a nightclub in Greenwich, that the music genre really took off.
Garage may refer to:
DJ EZ (pronounced E-Zed) is a DJ from Tottenham, North London, specialising in UK garage music.
At the age of 15, EZ (known at the time as Easy O) started his radio career on a pirate radio station called Dance 93FM playing house music, where he remained for 4 years. In early 1994, EZ set up his own pirate radio station based in Tottenham called Dimension FM, playing mostly rave and house music. Dimension FM didn't last long due to being closed down by the authorities. EZ then landed himself a 4-hour Saturday and Sunday morning show from 8.00am to 12.00pm on another pirate station - Freek 101.8 FM (it was at this time that he changed his name from Easy O to EZ). As EZ started getting more well known he was given extra show time and was also made a member of the station's management team. DJ EZ then started his own weekly club night called Club Z at the Gas Club in central London. DJ bookings for EZ started to soar and he was playing an average of 4 clubs a night every weekend.