Jazzstep - Record Labels

Record Labels

Drum and Bass as a whole is dominated by a small group of "hardcore" record labels. These are run mainly by some of the scene's most prominent DJ–producers, such as London Elektricity's Hospital Records, Andy C's Ram, Goldie's Metalheadz, Basement Records (Jack Smooth), Chris Renegade's Lifted Music, DJ Friction's Shogun Audio, DJ Fresh's Breakbeat Kaos and DJ Hype, Pascal and formerly DJ Zinc's True Playaz (now known as Real Playaz as of 2006).

The major international music labels such as Sony Music and Universal have shown very little interest in the drum and bass scene though there has been a few signings, most recently Pendulum's In Silico LP to Warner. Roni Size's Full Cycle Records played a big, if not the biggest, part in the creation of Drum and Bass with their dark, baseline sounds. V Recordings also played a large part of the development of Drum and Bass. Roni Size, Krust and DJ Die produced some of the first tracks to be considered mainstream Drum and Bass tracks.

In recent times, Andy C's Ram Records have been pushing the boundaries of drum and bass further into the mainstream with artists such as Chase and Status and Sub Focus releasing many tracks on RAM Chase & Status as well as Pendulum are already hovering in the mainstream and singles like "DJ Marky and XRS – LK" have in the past topped the UK charts. Bringing back UK Jungle Music legends from LTJ Bukem's label Good Looking artists Bay B Kane Breakbeat Hardcore heavyweight Nebula II and Original Junglist Gappa G who had a big hit with Information Center after remix's from DJ Zinc and Ray Keith. Other Bristol labels such as Cafe Bass have also helped to push through a sound categorised as 'Bass Music' with the help of influential artists such as Lone Ranger.