Breakbeat hardcore is a music genre that spawned from the UK rave scene during the early 1990s. It combines four-on-the-floor rhythms with breakbeats usually sampled from hip hop. In addition to the inclusion of breakbeats, the genre also features shuffled drum machine patterns, hoover, and other noises originating from new beat and Belgian techno, sounds from acid house and bleep techno, and often upbeat house piano riffs and vocals.
A rave is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance music scene when DJs played at illegal events in musical styles dominated by electronic dance music from a wide range of sub-genres, including drum and bass, dubstep, trap, break, happy hardcore, trance, techno, hardcore, house, and alternative dance. Occasionally live musicians have been known to perform at raves, in addition to other types of performance artists such as go-go dancers and fire dancers. The music is amplified with a large, powerful sound reinforcement system, typically with large subwoofers to produce a deep bass sound. The music is often accompanied by laser light shows, projected coloured images, visual effects and fog machines.
Breakbeat is a broad type of electronic music that tends to use drum breaks sampled from early recordings of funk, jazz, and R&B. Breakbeats have been used in styles such as Florida breaks, hip hop, jungle, drum and bass, big beat, breakbeat hardcore, and UK garage styles.
Jungle is a genre of electronic music that developed out of the UK rave scene and roots reggae and dancehall sound system culture in the 1990s. Emerging from breakbeat hardcore, the style is characterised by rapid breakbeats, heavily syncopated percussive loops, samples, and synthesised effects, combined with the deep basslines, melodies, and vocal samples found in dub, reggae and dancehall, as well as hip hop and funk. Many producers frequently sampled the "Amen break" or other breakbeats from funk and jazz recordings. Jungle was a direct precursor to the drum and bass genre which emerged in the mid-1990s.
Happy hardcore, also known as 4-beat or happycore, is a subgenre of hardcore dance music or "hard dance". It emerged both from the UK breakbeat hardcore rave scene, and Belgian, German and Dutch hardcore techno scenes in the early 1990s. The thing that makes happy hardcore stand apart from Gabber, is that happy hardcore tends to have breakbeats running alongside the 4/4 kick drum.
Hardcore is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany in the early 1990s. It is distinguished by faster tempos and a distorted sawtooth kick, the intensity of the kicks and the synthesized bass, the rhythm and the atmosphere of the themes, the usage of saturation and experimentation close to that of industrial dance music. It would spawn subgenres such as gabber.
Bouncy techno is a hardcore dance music rave style that developed in the early 1990s from Scotland and Northern England. Described as an accessible gabber-like form, it was popularised by Scottish DJ and music producer Scott Brown under numerous aliases.
Suburban Base Records is a British breakbeat hardcore, rave and jungle/drum and bass record label. It is based in Romford, Havering, England. It was established by Danny Donnelly and operated in the UK from 1990 to 1997 and in the United States from 1994 to 1997, however, started to release again in 2014.
Darkcore is a music subgenre of breakbeat hardcore in the UK rave scene, that emerged from late 1992. It is recognised as being one of the direct precursors of the genre now known as drum and bass.
Hard trance is a subgenre of trance music that originated in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands in the early 1990s as the Breakbeat hardcore production community began to diversify into new and different styles of electronic music, all influenced by Hard house, New beat, Happy hardcore and Jungle music. The popularity of hard trance peaked during the late 1990s and has since then faded in scope of newer forms of trance.
Matthew Nelson, better known as DJ Slipmatt, is a British electronic music producer and DJ. He was one half of breakbeat hardcore group SL2, who had a 1992 UK hit with "On a Ragga Tip".
Top Buzz are a British breakbeat hardcore and jungle DJ/MC crew.
DJ Dougal, is a British UK Hardcore and Happy Hardcore artist and DJ.
Drum and bass is an electronic music genre that originated in the UK rave scene having developed from breakbeat hardcore. The genre would go on to become one of the most popular genres of electronic dance music, becoming international and spawning multiple different derivatives and subgenres.
Shades of Rhythm are an English electronic dance music group most active from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, still performing live today and hailing from Peterborough in 1988. They are best known for being a part of the early '90s rave scene.
Aimran Majid, more commonly known as MC Magika, is a British MC, music producer and rave promoter. He was regularly featured at many of the big UK raves in the mid to late 1990s including Dreamscape, Helter Skelter, Fantazia, and on the dance music compilation DancemaniaSpeed sub-series. He is also known for being the MC for DJ Carl Cox, over several years from the early 1990s. Magika has presented on MTV Dance, hosted radio shows, and in 2022 started a martial arts academy in Stirchley, Birmingham.
Raindance are British rave event organisers. They were one of the best known rave names on the rave scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Scott McIlroy, better known as Doc Scott or Nasty Habits, is a British drum and bass DJ and producer.
The Criminal Minds are a British hip hop group first formed in Milton Keynes, UK in 1985, who would later have success with breakbeat hardcore music during the peak of the early-mid 1990s UK rave scene.
Belgian hardcore techno is an early style of hardcore techno that emerged from new beat as EBM and techno influences became more prevalent in this genre. This particular style has been described as an "apocalyptic, almost Wagnerian, bombastic techno", due to its use of dramatic orchestral stabs and menacing synth tones that set it apart from earlier forms of electronic dance music. It flourished in Belgium and influenced the sound of early hardcore from Netherlands, Germany, Italy, UK and North America during the early-1990s, as a part of the rave movement during that period.
