You may not know the name La Roux, but I’m fairly sure you’re aware of the names Snoop Dogg and Rihanna. There is a sound they are all in love with now, that if you’re not prepared for, you’re going to be hearing a LOT of in the future – good, bad, or indifferent. If you purchased Rihanna’s latest release Rated R and were expecting the sassy dance pop sounds of Brian Kennedy’s production “Disturbia,” well, when you got a blast of Dutch producers Chase and Status’s loud, brain frying, heavy and wobbly basslines, you likely had no idea what you signed up for. The sound is “dubstep”. It’s a distant cousin of reggae and dub, the direct descendant of drum & bass and, for mainstream producers, the new prettiest girl in school.

This conversation has to start with a bassline – Expressly, a reggae or Afrobeat bassline. Let’s start with an amazing bassline, say that of Bob Marley’s “Concrete Jungle” or Manu Dibango’s “Soul Makossa”. They are strong, they are deep, and they really make the groove. The bass is what causes the rhythm in dancing. If you can find a bassline, then you can move. You can nod your head, you can shuffle your feet, you can get intensely into a track on the dance floor. As Bootsy Collins says on “P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)” from Parliament’s Mothership Connection album, “funk not only moves, it can remove”. It removes inhibitions, social stigmas, and the shackles off someone’s feet to feel free to get down.

Now, let’s take our discussion of bass to the UK. Let us also enter into the discussion the multi-ethnic nature of the UK EDM (electronic dance music) scene. It’s not just a white thing or a black thing, it is a multi-ethnic dance explosion with the cultures bringing the funk being purely African and Caribbean in nature. Whereas in the US, Afro and Carribean influences were melded with soul, blues, and gospel to create hip-hop, the UK…well, that’s a horse of a different color. The influences remained wholly pure, and when co-mingled with house and techno music, we ended up initially with drum and bass. Remember, the funk doesn’t move, it removes as well. To blend the power of the funk, especially in its reggae, dub, and African uncut potency, with the strength of the substance abuse and intense creativity of the scene, it removed every rule we thought was necessary in EDM. The output was tracks that moved at 160 BPM, involved basslines being dropped in double measures, and a bassline that moves, moves, moves, moves and moves even more.

Now let’s hop back across the water again and read Malcolm Gladwell’s fantastic novel, The Tipping Point. This phenomenon occurs when “the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable”. Unstoppable for drum & bass would have to be the point when hip hop influences overran the scene and artists like Tricky reached mainstream success. Nobody likes to be a fan of something that has millions upon millions of people as enthusiasts, especially when the movement started underground. Drum & bass still has fans and pockets worldwide, but has not maintained the level of popularity it was at in the late 1990s.

Back to England – Let’s imagine a universe where you are pretty tired of double time basslines. So you add another bassline, and not just the single bassline drop, but basslines dropping everywhere. And let’s make them wobble while we’re at it. It is still heavily “dubplate” influenced, however, much like Salvador Dalí by the end of his tenure, the music now is not so much influenced by rule but influenced by art. Dubstep’s the final frontier of bass. It is odd, strange, and emotive of the most in depth of emotions. Dubstep’s not going to cause you to rage and rave and wild out. No, it’s going to make you scream, writhe, and dance and blast you repeatedly with the hardest and most multi-layered basslines you’ll ever hear.

You will end up with artists like Rusko, seen by many as the dubstep master, whose dubplate explorations sound like hip-hop taken to the absurdest levels. There’s also Skream, whose take on La Roux’s “In For the Kill” makes it sound like the world is coming to an end over someone’s broken heart.

Notably, producer and dj, Joker, has added an R&B/funk element to his dubstep productions, taking the feel out of the club and into the bedroom. It’s a far cry from a bassline reminiscent of 1973, but this merely belabors the point of necessity being the mother of invention, or just leaving well enough alone.

Dubstep’s detractors will state that the overwhelming power and sonic incohesiveness due to the power of the bassline ruins any possible melodious, enjoyable nature of the music. More attuned musicians will state that the perpetual change in time and measure ruins enjoyment as well. However, music is ultimately art and this music doesn’t really stand so much as sound, but as seen from the history above, is an amalgam of a very clear understanding of history with some artistic license. Dubstep, whether appreciated or hated, is truly the realm of art for art’s sake.

Marcus K. Dowling is the deranged mind behind True Genius Requires and Insanity and a writer for The Couch Sessions, Brightest Youngest Things, and CreamTeam.tv