Demon Boyz – Jungle Dett 

The debut Lost Record contribution from Nice Up Records’ DJ Shepdog.

Mastered @ The Exchange

Producer, Mixed By The Rebel MC

Growing up in the alleged cultural backwater that is Hull (although no longer as its City Of Culture 2017 don’t you know?), as a young teen I was enthralled by hardcore rave music. Throughout the 80s I’d graduated from listening to whatever my parents did to the pop music of the day, eventually discovering hip hop and dance music and forming my own tastes (shout to Jeff Young’s Big Beat show!). During the early 90s a new kind of sound started feeding through to my young ears – something taking all the influences of the past and throwing them together in a way I’d never heard before and it blew my mind. Something about it seemed so raw and so British – the colonial mentality of taking the best of other and sometime disparate cultures and putting them together, making them our own. Being a bit too young to experience it first hand, my exposure to this music was via “rave tapes” – available under the counter at the city’s cooler record shops, passed around the school playground or traded at a high premium with friends (I once lost a whole flyer pack to an Easygroove tape), but I was hooked.

During those years I firmly believe Hull had an equally as strong club scene as its northern peers Manchester, Leeds and Sheffiled – it just wasn’t lauded as much in the press. I fondly recall seeing names such as Sasha, Grooverider, Carl Cox and Top Buzz visiting the city, but unfortunately being too young to attend. My first club experience was being smuggled into The Welly (a northern powerhouse of rave, sawdust and sweat) by my friends older brothers. The soundtrack was spine tingling Italo piano anthems, banging Belgian new beat hoover sounds and dark, rumbling breakbeats mixed with roughneck basslines. I distinctly remember hearing this record for the first time and something inside me changed (I was way too young to be partaking in the “enhancements” of the day btw)

Demon Boyz were a UK hip hop group who had gained huge success on the scene with hits such as “Vibes”, “Northside” and “Recognition” on Simon Harris’s Music Of Life label, but a switch to Rebel Mc’s Tribal Base in 1992 resulted in this breakbeat hip hop hybrid (UK fast rap was definitely a thing of the time). The “Hardcore House Mix” pushed the envelope further with Mr Congo Natty stripping back most of the vocals in favour of various dancehall samples punctuating the chopped breakbeats – an obvious pre-cursor to the sound he would develop later on. I don’t think enough credit is given to Rebel MC as is deserved – along with artists such as Shut Up and Dance, Genaside II, DJ Hype and many more, our musical landscape would sound very different today. This tune still sounds fresh too – I’m pretty sure it could still blow some young minds now.

Ia it a Lost Record: YES

The Lost Record shines the light on vinyl tracks not available (at time of publish) on iTunes/Apple Music or Spotify.