FWD>> at Plastic People
A weekly night in a tiny Shoreditch club with a sound system far bigger than the room. FWD>> was where producers tested dubplates, records cut as a single copy to see how they landed before anyone released them.
GENRE · LONDON · 2001 ONWARD
History
of dubstep.
Dubstep was born in south London in the early 2000s, between a pirate radio station, a record shop in Croydon and a tiny club where people went to listen more than to dance. In ten years it went from playing to a few dozen people to winning a Grammy. This is the long version, told through the rooms and the records.
If you only want to know what it sounds like, the what is dubstep page covers that in five minutes. Here we take it slower.
Before the name
In the late nineties London ran on UK garage and on the pirate stations that played it from the rooftops of council tower blocks. The one that matters most for this story is Rinse FM, broadcasting without a licence since 1994. A few garage producers started putting out darker instrumental versions, with less vocal and more low end, that did not fit on any shelf.
In Croydon, the Big Apple Records shop became the meeting point for those people. Several of the names who later defined the genre worked there or hung around, Hatcha, Skream and Benga among them, and the last two were teenagers at the time.
The rooms where it came together
DMZ in Brixton
Mala and Coki, who produced together as Digital Mystikz, start DMZ with Loefah. Their Brixton nights filled up with people standing still in front of the speakers. The scene's motto was "come meditate on bass weight", and they meant it.
Midnight Request Line
Skream puts this track out on Tempa and it becomes the first anthem to break out of the circle. DJs from other genres played it, which had almost never happened.
Dubstep Warz on the BBC
Mary Anne Hobbs gives a whole Radio 1 show to the scene, with its producers in the studio. For a lot of people outside London, that was the first time they heard the word.
Burial
An anonymous producer releases two albums on Hyperdub, Kode9's label. The second, Untrue, was nominated for the Mercury Prize. They sound like rain, night buses and an empty city, and they showed the press that dubstep worked on headphones too.
The jump to big stages
In 2007 Caspa and Rusko recorded a mix for the FabricLive series with a more direct dubstep, all twisting basslines and drops built to make a crowd scream. That sound travelled fast to the United States, where producers coming from metal and electro picked it up.
In 2010 Skrillex released the Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites EP, and in 2012 its title track won the Grammy for best dance recording. For the general public dubstep turned into something else: metallic bass, huge drops, festivals of tens of thousands. The London scene called it brostep, not always kindly. For a couple of years it was in adverts, video games and pop records.
What came after
When the commercial wave cooled off, the genre split into branches and each one found its people. Riddim turned repetition into a method. Tearout pushed aggression all the way to noise. Others went back to the slow, spacious sound of DMZ. In the United States, bass-only festivals like Excision's Lost Lands, running since 2017, proved there was an audience for a whole weekend of it.
In Costa Rica the scene is still small: a few nights a year and mostly the same faces up front by the speakers. Our 31 December party at The Park at Ocean Ranch, near Jacó, comes out of that. The announced lineup is available now, and the artists will shape how the night moves between those sounds. If one branch has your attention, start with riddim or with dubstep vs drum and bass.
Questions about the history
Who invented dubstep?
Nobody in particular. It was a scene: producers like Skream, Benga, Hatcha, Digital Mystikz and Loefah, the Rinse FM station, and nights like FWD>> and DMZ, all in south and east London between 2001 and 2006. If you have to name one place, almost everyone says Croydon.
Why is it called dubstep?
From Jamaican dub, which gave it the idea of a lead bassline and mixes full of space, and from 2-step, the UK garage variant its broken rhythm came from. The word was first used as a label in record shops and the specialist press, around 2002.
Is Skrillex dubstep?
His Scary Monsters era is, on the branch London called brostep. Later he folded in other genres and today he produces a bit of everything. For a lot of people he was the way in.
Hear it live
Two bass stages on December 31 and January 1, camping among the trees, and music until 3 am. Tickets are on sale now. Choose your night and buy tickets for La Selva del Bajo at The Park at Ocean Ranch.
Buy ticketsKeep reading
What Is Dubstep? Origin, BPM and SoundDubstep is electronic music at about 140 BPM with half-time drums and sub-bass. Where it came from, how it differs from drum and bass, and what to listen for.Dubstep vs Drum and Bass: The DifferenceDubstep sits at 140 BPM in half-time, drum and bass at 170 on breakbeats. How to tell them apart by ear, where each came from, and which one is yours. From a bass night near Jacó.
Riddim in Costa RicaRiddim is dubstep stripped to the bone: triplets, one bass sound, no filler. What it is, how to spot it, and where it sits in Costa Rica near Jacó.