Jump-up (drum and Bass)

Jump-up (drum And Bass)

Jump-Up is a subgenre of Drum and Bass that was first popular in the mid-1990s. Tunes typically were light-hearted, featuring hip hop samples and loud melodic basslines. The term is derived from the earlier use of "jump-up" to refer to tracks with often ambient intros which altered their style at the drop, often by breaking into amen breakbeats. This would make the crowd "jump up" and dance. Around 1994 it began to be more exclusively applied to records with hip hop samples and oscillating basslines, such as Suburban Bass artists Dream Team and DJ Hype, and by 1995 more specifically to the style associated with DJ Zinc and Ganja Records.

"New Dawn" - The X (Jump Up Records) (1995) and "Warhead" - DJ Krust are two good examples of the genre which would more specifically be called jump-up, though tunes did not necessarily use amen breaks. By this time it referred especially to the style recorded by artists such as DJ Zinc, Aphrodite and Dillinja (amongst many others), and this could include amens but more often had a step-break (see below) or only used an amen or other breakbeat as an additional dancefloor incentive later in the track.

There was a lot of crossover in styles produced by artists though, and one artist's style of jump-up could be quite different to another's. Aphrodite's jump-up records, for instance, are more rolling in style. "Drum and Bass" (see DJ Rush Puppy "Silencer – Drum and Bass Mix" 1995) would be used for records with more drum breaks or which were more electronic-sounding (such as the genre which would later be called tech-step).

There is even more crossover here, since there were records which were in this style before the term "drum and bass" even existed, and "jump-up jungle" previously was not a genre but referred to those jungle records which changed style mid-record. These records could now be called "drum and bass" instead, distinguishing them from more jungle-sounding gangster, rolling styles and jump-up styles. But since "drum and bass" was now more popular than "jungle" as the name for the whole style of music, any record could be called "drum and bass". In the late 2000s, newer tunes with a light-hearted feel have been increasingly been referred to as Jump Up.

From the 2000s a heavy influence on Jump Up was the "True Playaz" label (formerly known as "Real Playaz") who started in 1990. The collective was started by DJ Hype, Zinc and Swift. The True Playaz label has had a huge impact on the genre with artists releasing well known tracks within the community such as, Mr Happy (DJ Hazard) and Dodge City (Sub Zero).