It’s hard to fathom the cultural and social significance record shops played in the development of Jungle Drum & Bass. Before smartphones and social media, record stores were your one stop shop for discovering new styles, finding tune IDs you’d been after for weeks, meeting fellow aspiring artists, and rubbing shoulders with industry legends. Far more than just a buy/sell exchange, record shops continue to play a vital role in D&B’s ecosystem. They serve as a community hub; staff with years’ of knowledge and expertise are able to recommend music you didn’t know you needed in your life. With the majority of vinyl sales now taking place online, the number of stores has decreased dramatically over the past few years. Those continuing to sell records IRL deeply understand and recognise the value and power of pushing music far and wide, exposing customers to new sounds.

We will be highlighting the significant impact women music makers have had on jungle, a cultural phenomenon pretty much exclusively archived through the male gaze.

There are a couple of artists here who you may be surprised to find out were women - most people assume Jo who co-produced the anthem R-Type was male, and it was only a couple of months ago that we found out Xtreme was a woman!

Researching these producers has led to a lot of unanswered questions that we hope to explore further. We want to highlight these womens’ amazing contribution and give thanks to these trailblazers who forged a path for us to follow.

To mark #BlackHistoryMonth⁠ I thought I’d start daily posts highlighting Black women* involved in UK #jungle #dnb over the years.