Picture it: South London, 1994. Local writer Andrew Green and photographer Eddie Otchere adopt the pseudonyms Two Fingas and James T Kirk, respectively, and use their lived experiences as the departure point for Junglist, a fictional coming-of-age tale that follows the exploits of Meth, Biggie, Q, and Craig over a weekend set in the city’s burgeoning jungle scene. Moving at the speed of sound, the 20 year-olds completed the book in just two months, crafting a mesmerising pulp fiction novel that is equal parts music, poetry, and film.
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As the lovechild of UK rave and sound system culture, jungle was the sound of the world at the edge of a new era about to reveal itself. Driven by breakbeats – the rhythms that Jamaican DJs like Kool Herc used when he invented hip hop in the early 1970s – microengineered to twist time into a sonic blaze, jungle drew from and remade techno, rave, electro, dancehall, dub, hip hop, and house into an Afrofuturistic sound. The burgeoning culture quickly took the city by storm, maintaining its own DIY feel via an interconnected web of nightclubs, white label pressings, and pirate radio shows.
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“Jungle burst out of the underground and for a brief period (it) was everywhere – you couldn’t watch TV or listen to the radio without hearing elements of it,” says Green. “Jungle was the first electronic music I connected with; it felt like it was just for me, my crew, and my peers. We were making the scene appear out of nowhere. At the time, there were no clubs in the centre of London that played music for Black audiences so you had to be on the outskirts to find clubs. It was a mission to go out.”
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