There have been a slew of incredible tunes to come out lately in a new strain of music known as footwork jungle. Or jungle footwork. Whatever. The point is, it marries the speed and styistically-choppy vocal edits, the 808s and ghetto musical aesthetics of Chicago juke…to the speed, breakbeats, ravey pads and structures of jungle. The end result is a 160 beats per minute nightmare of excitement. Yea, that’s right, a ‘nightmare of excitement,’ I said it. Said what we were all thinking…

Anyway, the point is, it’s a very new style, and as such, I’e been seeing all kinds of labels prop up in the last couple of months. You’re starting to see all sorts of jungle footwork releases coming out, with label serial #’s that end in ‘001,’ representing the label’s first release. In other words, it’s an exciting time. Folks are catching on. People are getting organized. Emails are being sent. Plans are being developed. Flags are being hoisted. Bras are being burned. It’s an exciting time! More exciting than dubstep, the Beatles, and some kind of awesome Mexican lunch buffet all rolled into one! Fuck yea, more exciting than any Step Beatles Buffet!! The 160 is making it’s way back to the rave!

Here’s ten incredible footwork jungle trax I want to lay on yah! Enjoy!

10… Codename John – Dreams of Heaven (Mark Kloud Edit – clip)

Found this guy after he posted on theDynasty Shit (record label) submissions page over on soundcloud… This guy’s originals are dope, and his mixes are even doper-er-er. You gotta check some of those out… *I almost made this top ten a ‘top ten footwork jungle mixtapes,’ but decided to go for original tunes… that’ll have to be the next one.. But – I am pleased to announce that Mark Kloud IS going to be releasing music on Dynasty Shit soon, so that should be a lot of fun!

9… Fracture – Bad Habit (Om Unit VIP)

Om Unit is a bad ass producer, and is actually one of the original founders of the beautifully-mutated strain of music we call jungle-footwork.. (or footwork-jungle, or jungle-juke, or.. whatever… Hey, let’s be honest, here, at very least, footwork jungle is an organic and logical name – and it’ll probably stay that way until someone thinks of something cooler (which isn’t exactly necessary, but could happen) OR, more likely, when NME decides to re-brand it as something like… “Dubstep 2,” or, “JungleFoot,” or, “SpeedHouse,” or something equally dumb… Yea, those are all dumb names, but over-zealous and untalented music critics changed jungle to drum’n’bass, and they do that kinda thing all the time.. Not that this is exactly relevant, but thought I’d bring this up. Yea, just watch – music critics will have a field day with it, sooner or later..)

8… FishStix – OriginalMurdah

Another badass tune here… Fishstix has been blowing up the juke for a little while now, and his new Junglework EP is now available. A lot of this dude’s stuff goes hardcore as fuck, which I really enjoy.. He puts the ARDKORE into the ONESIXTY!

7… Phokus & Grapes – Ballers

A fun little tune, which gets pretty damn trappin’. Fine juke, to be certain, with some real DnB-style rhythmic elements. The vocals are fun as hell, too. B-b-b-b-b-b-b-ballahs, playas, pimps, crackheads, and racist-ass cops!

6… ASC – Karma (Chrissy Murderbot Remix)

A remix by Chirssy Murderbot of an old ASC track. You might notice by now, if you haven’t already, that there are a range of different techniques and styles that go into this kind of music… Some lean closer to jungle and some closer to the ghetto house side of juke and footwork. In the end, it’s all just good music, but I definitely think it’s interesting to hear different artists perspectives coming at this new genre. For a junglist douche like me it’s exciting. Shits like bing AND bang.

5… Sinistarr – Ross

A banger from Sinistarr off of the Loose Squares label. I gotta say I normally hate/absolutely-loathe/simply-can’t-stand Rick Ross (not the real one, but the imposter who took Rick Ross’ name and started rapping….) BUT this track REALLY demonstrates the best possible use of the dude’s vocals. He makes them palatable. To do that, have to say Sinistarr must be some kind of twisted and maniacal footwork genius. Ha.

4… Fishstix – MusicIsaMission

On the more chill / soulful / delicious pad tip of things, here’s MusicIsaMisson by Fishstix. Though it’s more of a chiller, that definitely doesn’t mean it’s any less fast In fact, with some of the fuckaroundish breakbeats, it almost sounds faster than a lot of stuff I’ve heard so far. Thus, the beauty of this new music – it can be hardcore / fast AND vibrant / soulful. What more could you want?

3… REMARC – DRUM N BASS WISE [R.A.W. iz dat footwork? RMX by 6Blocc]

6Blocc resurrected this old Remarc jem of a gam and gave it a facelift. Very enjoyable!

2… Manni Dee & Deft – Jungle Jook

Can’t really get my head around how few views this one has… Seriously, it’s awesome. But, sometimes even really dope tracks that get tons of plays in one place don’t always get a ton of plays somewhere else. Ah, the internets. Anyway, this one’s a good one, too. And, like the # 1 track I selected, it’s from Youtube. So, the consistency of having-all-soundcloud-audio players in this post is now all fucked up… Sorry.. But not really.. Anyway, Manni Dee and Deft really kill it with this one. One of the first tracks of this style that I ever heard, actually.

1… Remarc – R.I.P (Philip D Kick’s Remix)

This one is dynamite. I couldn’t find it on soundcloud so I went straight to youtube. It’s an anthem. Philip D Kick really set it off with his compilations of remixes he did of old jungle tunes. So, you might say he’s the Kurt Cobain of footwork jungle. HA! Only joking of course! (Kurt Cobain was a douchebag who never really invented anything – Philip D Kick actually experimented and came up with something new and fun ) You can get his mixes online, they’re out there, and they’re free. He’s apparently stopped making juke’d out jungle remixes though… But the damage has already been done. His rhythmic formula has taken root like a virus, and in a matter of time it’ll be all over the place. Hopefully, it won’t get as annoying as dubstep… Something tells me it won’t though.

My regret, with this post, is that I’ve been really enjoying these sounds a LOT lately (it’s almost all of what I’ve been listening to) but I know there’s a lot more out there that I haven’t heard yet… Plus, ten tracks is really too small of a number. I’m almost certainly going to have to do a ‘top ten footwork jungle trax – PART 2 !’ or something.. AH, and the mixtapes! There are SO MANY good ones! :) Ah, but anywho… I hope you enjoyed this post. I know I did :) Spending some time chillin’ out and selecting my favorite jungle footwork tunes is definitely a fun thing to do…