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Drum and bass

electronic music genre

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ188994 ↗
Source-derived summary

Drum and bass (D&B), also known as drum 'n' bass (DnB or D'n'B), is a genre of electronic dance music that emerged in the United Kingdom in the early 1990s. It is characterised by fast breakbeats (typically 165–185 beats per minute) with heavy bass and sub-bass lines, samples, and synthesizers.

Originating in the UK jungle scene in the early 1990s, drum and bass drew on elements of reggae, dub, hip-hop, breakbeat hardcore, techno, and house. By the mid-1990s, it had become one of the most distinctive and technically innovative styles within the broader electronic dance music movement. The style of drum and bass often incorporates an array of influences from other genres including ambient, funk, jazz, soul, rock, and pop. The genre has since developed multiple subgenres and maintains both an underground and mainstream presence worldwide.

The popularity of drum and bass at its commercial peak ran parallel to several other UK dance styles. A major influence was the original Jamaican dub and reggae sound that influenced jungle's bass-heavy sound. Another feature of the style is the complex syncopation of the drum tracks' breakbeat. Drum and bass subgenres include breakcore, ragga jungle, hardstep, darkstep, techstep, neurofunk, ambient drum and bass, liquid drum and bass, jump up, drumfunk, sambass, and drill 'n' bass.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Drum and bass” as electronic music genre. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Drum, bass and electronic.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current 212-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1992-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Drum, bass and electronic providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Drum and bass”, the useful work is to connect “electronic music genre” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q188994. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Drum and bass primary sources, Drum and bass archive and Drum research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Drum and bass” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.