Before drum and bass had a record industry, it had pirate radio. East London 1992 to 1996 was full of illegal FM broadcasters operating from tower-block rooftops, broadcasting jungle to a few square miles of listeners.

The big three

Kool FM, Eruption, Don FM. Each ran weekly DJ sets from rotating MCs, took live phone calls, played dub plates that would not get a commercial release for months. The signal jumped between frequencies as the regulator chased it. Listeners learned to scan the dial.

How it shaped the music

Pirate radio rewarded immediacy. Producers cut a track at 2pm, dropped it to a DJ at 6pm, heard it on air at 9pm. The feedback loop between studio and broadcast was minutes long. The genre evolved fast because the distribution was faster than vinyl pressing.

What replaced it

Internet streaming killed pirate radio, but the format inheritance is everywhere. Rinse FM, NTS, Refuge Worldwide: all built on the pirate template. The current weekly DnB streams on Twitch are the same idea, one studio further down the chain.