Looking for your next night out with a difference? Bored of the same old clubs, pub and tunes? If you’re a fan of bass driven music, small and quirky venues and a thumping night out, then Bristol might just be your own personal Mecca. A night out in the self-proclaimed trip-hop and drum’n’bass capital of Britain could open your eyes to a world of urban happenings right within the heart of sleepy South West England. So what is it that makes Bristol so great?
The Bristol Sound
This small but powerful metropolis of musical genres has generated some of the most ground-breaking advances in the UK music scene, and has been producing talent such as Massive Attack and Portishead since the late Eighties. Melding USA-inspired hip hop themes with a very British melancholic twist, the Bristol Sound created at the turn of the century has had a lasting impact on music. With cult albums such as Massive Attack’s ‘Blue Lines’ the sound was dubbed ‘trip-hop’ and has diversified, seeping back into bass music and urban culture.
Drum’n’bass also has its roots in the urban dissidence of Bristol’s streets, as has grime, UK hip-hop and garage. World famous guerrilla artist Banksy learnt the ropes here and his burgeoning talent follows a tradition in Bristol of music and graffiti art intertwined to form an atmosphere of youth culture and creativity. Bristolians have painted, mixed and recorded their way to some pretty big sounds over the last twenty years, and fuelled by a scene still going from strength to strength in dubstep, dnb, grime and hip-hop; expect this to continue for a long time to come.
An Evolving Current
The history of Bristol contributes to its in-your-face bass culture status in the modern day. The historical multi-culturalism of the city has bequeathed it rich veins of ska, reggae, dub and world music to mine, alongside a healthy dose of rebellious political unrest. Whilst Bristol’s history of riots and slave-profiteering don’t always make for a happy tale, the influence of diverse and often politically active minority populations has proved to be a very good thing for the making of music and the formation of urban subcultures.
Bristol, like Manchester and London can truly lay claim to an iconic and definitive ‘scene’ for music lovers. Its young ravers can boast of their own heroes and follow suit by picking up tools of the street art adorning walls everywhere with colourful and intricate statements, or try their first tentative hand on a pair of second-hand decks. When they do they will be joining a progressive and evolving current of Bristolian sound, which continues to hold its own against the heavy-weight artists and genres revered all over the UK in urban youth culture.
This article was written by Banksy t shirts enthusiast and emerging Bristol artist Kim Yau.
