Ragga jungle

Ragga jungle is a subgenre of oldschool jungle that emerged c. 1989–1990 and was initially heavily based on production of Michael West (Rebel MC, Congo Natty Label). Early pioneers of the genre also include Lennie De Ice, DJ Dextrous, Remarc, MBeat and Ragga Twins.

History

The style is credited with engaging the black community within the jungle scene, and contributed to the 'bad boy' or 'rude boy' subculture within the UK. Ragga jungle's popularity waned significantly since 1995 in the UK, in part because the more popular DJs have stopped giving the sound airtime. There was a large amount of rudeboy/guntalk reggae being produced at that time which influenced the ragga jungle sound greatly. Some tracks featured samples of gangster movies, gunshots, and samples of Reggae sound clashes.

Ragga jungle is now a niche sound, with a small number of labels releasing music that can be categorised as the genre. Ragga jungle is the sum of four parts. Jungle breakbeats, rudeboy lyrics, reggae bass lines, and a sound clash mentality. In the 2000s, Canadian and American producers have been gaining popularity with their updated version of the subgenre largely through online networks, sparking a small, yet international renaissance. Prominent producers of the new-school sound are continuing to build bridges, often re-voicing classic reggae singers to produce new works for exclusive use (as dubplates) and retail sale as 12" vinyl singles and downloadable MP3s.

Ed Solo

Ed Solo (born Ed Bickley) is a British disc jockey and record producer of electronic and dance music. He has worked with artists including Blak Twang, Deekline, MC Det, Fatboy Slim, Roots Manuva, Shy FX, DJ Swift, DJ Trace and Eliabeth Troy.

Career

Solo's first releases were "125th Street" and "The Danger", co-produced with label boss Dave Stone. Solo and Stone went under the name Click and Cycle and the tune became the second-biggest seller on Emotive Records (SOUR's sister label).

In 1997, he moved to Brighton and set up a studio with Stone. Solo started working with DJ Brockie and the pair made "Reprasent", Undiluted's first release, which reached number one on all the drum-and-bass charts. Brockie and Solo continued to make more songs, including "Turntable 1", "Echo Box" (on the True Playaz label) and "System Check".

Solo became involved in the Nu Skool Breaks in 2005; his studio was located above Krafty Kuts's old record shop. He then began working with Krafty Kuts and later the pair began co-producing music together on Krafty Kut's album Freakshow (2006). Within Nu Skool Breaks, Solo has also collaborated with musicians including Deekline, Darrison, Skool of Thought, as well as mixing down tunes for breakbeat artists including Freq Nasty and Splitloop.

Xzibit

Alvin Nathaniel Joiner (born September 18, 1974), better known by his alias Xzibit (pronounced "exhibit"), is an American rapper, actor, television host and record producer. He is known as the host of the MTV show Pimp My Ride, which brought him mainstream success. Before hosting the show, he achieved fame in the West Coast hip-hop scene as a rapper, debuting with his acclaimed At the Speed of Life and gathering chart success with his follow-up albums Restless, Man vs. Machine and Weapons of Mass Destruction, working with high-profile artists such as Eminem, Cypress Hill, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Knoc-turn'al, Timbaland, Limp Bizkit, Alice Cooper, Game, 50 Cent and Within Temptation, as well as being one of the first rappers to work internationally, collaborating with overseas acts such as Russian rapper Timati, Raptile from Germany, Bliss N Eso from Australia and Adil Omar from Pakistan.

Early life

Born as Alvin Nathaniel Joiner on September 18, 1974 in Detroit, Michigan, Xzibit grew up with a single mother. His father left the family early to pursue a career as a preacher, forcing his mother to raise a young Alvin and his four siblings (an older sister and brother as well as a little brother and younger sister) alone. After her death he had to move in with his father. His father remarried and relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Joiner lived in Albuquerque from age 10 to 17, and began writing rhymes. However, he had numerous run-ins with the law and ultimately ended up moving to California to live with his sister. It was here where he first began to rap and pursue a music career. He later reconciled with his father, who can be heard on his second studio album.

Top Cat

Top Cat is an animated television series made by the Hanna-Barbera studios which ran from September 27, 1961 to April 18, 1962 for a run of 30 episodes on the ABC network.

History

Originally broadcast on Wednesdays (8:30–9pm Eastern), Top Cat was co-sponsored by Kellogg's and Bristol-Myers (Bufferin). The central character, Top Cat—called T.C. by close friends, "pro-vid-ing it's with dignity" according to the lyrics of the theme song—is the leader of a gang of Manhattan alley cats: Fancy-Fancy, Spook, Benny the Ball, Brain, and Choo Choo, living in Hoagy's Alley.

Top Cat and his gang were inspired by characters from the popular 1940s B movies, "The East Side Kids", but many suggest it derived from The Phil Silvers Show, a later 1950s military comedy whose lead was a crafty con-man. Maurice Gosfield, who played Private Duane Doberman on The Phil Silvers Show, also provided the voice for Benny the Ball in Top Cat (as Benny's rotund appearance was based on Gosfield too).

Even Arnold Stang's voicing of Top Cat strongly resembled Phil Silvers' voice. Other possible sources cited have been Guys and Dolls where actor Stubby Kaye played a short, stout street-wise gambler and a virtual Benny the Ball prototype. Lastly, an unlikely contender (as it also came from Hanna Barbera) was the character Hokey Wolf, from a segment on The Huckleberry Hound Show, which also had parallels to The Phil Silvers Show.

Jungle

A jungle is land covered with dense vegetation dominated by trees. Application of the term has varied greatly during the last several centuries. Jungles in Western literature can represent a less civilised or unruly space outside the control of civilisation: attributed to the jungle's association in colonial discourse in the British Raj. Therefore, the nearest equivalent scientific term is probably monsoon and seasonal tropical forest.

Etymology

The word jungle originates from the Sanskrit word jangala (Sanskrit: जङ्गल), meaning uncultivated land. Although the Sanskrit word refers to dry land, it has been suggested that an Anglo-Indian interpretation led to its connotation as a dense "tangled thicket" while others have argued that a cognate word in Urdu did refer to forests. The term is prevalent in many languages of the Indian subcontinent, and the Iranian plateau, where it is commonly used to refer to the plant growth replacing primeval forest or to the unkempt tropical vegetation that takes over abandoned areas.