What is Dubstep?

Dubstep was born in the early 2000s in South London, emerging from UK garage, two step, breakbeat, reggae and dub. According to dubstep pioneer Kode9, its main characteristics are »bass and space«. Kind of a »sister genre« is grime which arose from the same influences but puts more emphasis on the mc (so, here other styles like British hip hop and dancehall play a role, too).

Dubstep is characterized by a minimalistic arrangement, a dark sound, sparse, syncopated rhythms and – like dub or drum'n'bass – a heavy sub-bass. Tempos are typically between 135 and 145 bpm. Quite common are so-called halfstep beats, creating a halftime feel and resulting in heavy, sluggish beats reminiscent of hip hop and dub (as are extensive reverb/delay effects). Another characteristic often found in dubstep tracks is the so-called »wobble bass«, a rhythmically manipulated bass note with filter cutoff modulation and distortion. In some tracks/styles it almost reminds of a metal guitar riff.

First (proto-)dubstep producers around 2000 include Zed Bias and El-B. End of the 1990s, drum and bass and two-step garage had become kind of a »mainstream party scene« in the UK, so producers started to experiment with darker sounds and to strip down UK garage. This sound is often referred to as »dark garage«. An important hub in the development of dubstep was the Big Apple Records store where lots of the genre pioneers met and/or worked, like the aforementioned Zed Bias and El-B, Plastician (who mixed grime and dubstep), Digital Mystikz (consisting of Mark »Mala« Lawrence and Dean »Coki« Harris), DJ Hatcha or Skream whose 2005 track »Midnight Request Line« is considered one of the most influential tracks in the development of dubstep and the first genre anthem. The same year, producer duo Digital Mystikz started the DMZ night, after Forward (FWD>>) the other influential club night for the new sound. Other important and influential genre tracks are »Night« (2007) by Benga & Coki, Benga’s »26 Basslines« (2008) or Burial’s albums »Burial« (2006) and »Untrue« (2007), both highly critically acclaimed as two of the most important records.

The term »dubstep« was coined in 2002 by Neil Jolliffe, founder of the Tempa label, who wrote it in a press release, and music magazine XLR8R used it in an article featuring Horsepower Productions then. With the Tempa release of »Dubstep Allstars, Volume 1: Mixed by DJ Hatcha« in 2004, the genre name was definitely established. Tempa was – besides others like Souljy, Bingo and Road – a label of Ammunition Promotions, who ran the Forward (FWD>>) club night. A radio show by Forward (FWD>>) on pirate station Rinse FM, hosted by dj Kode9, also helped spread the new genre – as did the BBC 1 radio show »Dubstep Warz«, starting in 2006 and hosted by djane Mary Anne Hobbs. New digital technology was quite crucial in the development and popularization of dubstep: easily accessible music production software helped young musicians like Skream and Benga who released their first tracks as teens, and the Dubstep Forum, founded outside the UK in 2005 by Croatian Ivan Kovacevic, connected the scene online and internationally.

By the end of the decade, dubstep had found its way into mainstream and the charts with hits like »I Need Air« (2010, UK charts No. 10) by Magnetic Man (consisting of djs Benga, Skream and Artwork), »mainstream dubstep queen«’s Katy B’s »Katy on a Mission« (2010, produced by Benga, No. 5 UK single charts), »Blind Faith« (2011, UK single charts No. 5) by Chase & Status and DJ Fresh’s »Louder Ft Sian Evans« (2011) which was the first dubstep track to reach No. 1 in the UK single charts. Later that year, with »Promises« by trio Nero (consisting of Dan Stephens, Joe Ray and Alana Watson) another dubstep track topped the UK single charts. Mainstream pop/rnb artists like Britney Spears, Rihanna or Taylor Swift integrated dubstep elements into their songs.

On the other side of the pond in North America, important dubstep djs include Dave Q (Brooklyn, NY) and Joe Nice (Baltimore, MD) who is referred to as »America’s Dubstep Ambassador«. SMOG, an event company and later also label founded by Drew Best and Danny Johnson, was an important multiplicator on the East Coast, with djs like 12th Planet who often featured a young artist later known as Skrillex . In 2011, dubstep gained widespread popularity in the USA by its American offspring which is often (and sometimes disrespectfully) referred to as »brostep« – a more aggressive variant of dubstep with influences from electro house and featuring »dirty«, (heavily) distorted basslines that almost have some »heavy metal attitude«. Starting point was probably the track »Cockney Thug« by British dj/producer Rusko which was highly successful in the US scene (but – according to Rusko – originally intended to be more of a joke). Most prominent figure of so-called brostep is US- American dj/producer and eight-time Grammy Award winner Skrillex , further notable artists include Canadian djs/producers Datsik and Excision .

Dubstep had its heyday from 2009 to 2014. Newer genre artists are e.g. Ace Aura , Akeos , Oolacile, Moore Kismet (all from the US), British producer/dj Hukae, Voltra from Germany and Papa Khan from Indonesia.