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M-Beat


haste

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Little is known about this man. Most equate his name with his high profile jungle crossover hits ?Sweet Love? and ?Incredible? but beyond these tunes lies the talent of one of the finest jungle producers the genre has ever seen. From his beginnings on the Renk label bashing out obscure white label hardcore releases to his dominance of the club dancefloors in the mid 90s, M-Beat was pretty much unstoppable until his two greatest successes pushed him out of the favour with the jungle fraternity.

 

93 and 94 saw him unleash some of the biggest underground jungle tunes that have ever been played. Tunes like ?Rumble?, ?Shuffle? and ?Style? still send crowds wild with their huge ragga samples and breakneck beats. His remake of Anita Baker's ?Sweet Love? started the cross over after setting dancehalls alight and then the General Levy collaboration ?Incredible? launched him straight into the charts.

 

Misunderstandings between Levy and some of jungles biggest DJs/producers meant that his name was tarnished and he was all but outlawed. His 1996 collaboration with the then relatively up & coming Jamiroquai was a surprisingly good, funky drum and bass workout but, sadly, his output since then has been very low key.

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Hmm... I think the last part of the second paragraph should be like:

His cover of the Anita Baker song “Sweet Love”...

as only the original promo had actual samples of the song (but I guess for copyright reasons he had a vocalist sing it for the commercial release... maybe coupled with the fact that the sampled version was completely off-key).

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  • 1 month later...
Misunderstandings between Levy and some of jungles biggest DJs/producers meant that his name was tarnished and he was all but outlawed. His 1996 collaboration with the then relatively up & coming Jamiroquai was a surprisingly good, funky drum and bass workout but, sadly, he disappeared afterwards and has since never returned to the music scene.

Can you elaborate more on these misunderstandings?

 

Also, in stating he has "since never returned to the music scene" be an error, since he put out that tiny tots tune in 02'? I remember listening to it @ a record shop as a matter of fact.

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Can you elaborate more on these misunderstandings?

 

Also, in stating he has "since never returned to the music scene" be an error, since he put out that tiny tots tune in 02'? I remember listening to it @ a record shop as a matter of fact.

What happened was that General Levy said "Jungle...we run it" or something similar and the top DJs of the scene took it to heart and blacklisted Levy & M-Beat. Kinda silly, really.

 

Haven't heard a Tiny Tots thing? What was that? I've actually heard that he's been making other forms of music but the people wouldn't let on the aliases that he's been using <_>

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What happened was that General Levy said "Jungle...we run it" or something similar and the top DJs of the scene took it to heart and blacklisted Levy & M-Beat. Kinda silly, really.

 

Haven't heard a Tiny Tots thing? What was that? I've actually heard that he's been making other forms of music but the people wouldn't let on the aliases that he's been using  <_<

Thats kinda stupid. Do you know which djs took offense to that?

 

The tiny tots thing was on a white label(at least the one ive listened to @ the record shop). Apparently its based on the theme song of some british kids show. It was a decent tune. I was thinkin about pickin it up back then, but for whatever reason i didnt. Check it here

http://www.dancerecords.com/search.php?id=10431&SID=&a=1

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Thats kinda stupid. Do you know which djs took offense to that?

 

The tiny tots thing was on a white label(at least the one ive listened to @ the record shop). Apparently its based on the theme song of some british kids show. It was a decent tune. I was thinkin about pickin it up back then, but for whatever reason i didnt. Check it here

http://www.dancerecords.com/search.php?id=10431&SID=&a=1

It was the usual DJs you'd expect to behave in that way...not gonna name any names ;) :P

 

Tiny Tots is a kid's show...that tune's kinda cheesy but not as bad as it could be considering what it's based on!!

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  • 3 weeks later...
I seem to remember General Levy claiming he invented jungle, in either a magazine article or T.V. interview, poss. 'The Word'

which is what caused the backlash

 

The interview was in Face magazine. Some of the comments he made were:

 

"I run jungle at the moment".... "I came along and bigged up jungle. I took it national" ....."Now I'm running jungle. Big Time"

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  • 2 years later...

dunno if its true but ive been told M-Beat is M-Dubs :unsure:

 

The interview was in Face magazine. Some of the comments he made were:

 

"I run jungle at the moment".... "I came along and bigged up jungle. I took it national" ....."Now I'm running jungle. Big Time"

 

sounds like a typical comment from an bigheaded MC if you ask me :rolleyes:

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  • 1 year later...

There are some good bits about the Levy/M-Beat debacle in 'All Crews Muss Big Up' (http://www.knowledgemag.co.uk/allcrews/interview.asp). Apparently Dj Hype was at the head of the 'Committee' that had formed to try and boycott the perceived pollution of jungle with ragga and bastard MCs, particularly the meteoric rise of M-Beat's 'Incredible'. The so called Committee felt that jungle was being misrepresented to the masses with the huge success of this tune. Apparently loads of DJs refused airplay and blacklisted the tune/artist.

 

Ironic given some of Hype's output during that time. Although the book is of course a subjective account, it states that aside from heads forcing a public apology from Levy (in Face Magazine, 1994), some fellas had gone 'round to see him....

 

...great book btw, loads of history in it.

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