Diary Of An Afro Warrior

We Say...

Review by Philip Sherburne

London dubstepper Benga has been releasing tunes since 2002, which is to say, since the scene's infancy. (Dubstep spun off from UK garage around the turn of the millennium.) Perhaps as a result, you can hear the whole sweep of the genre in this debut. There's plenty of low-end pressure, which in recent years has become dubstep's focus almost to the point of fetishization, as the popular slogan "Meditate on bass weight" makes clear. (Owners of expensive speakers will consistently be amazed by the magma-like sub-bass bubbling up from below: it's something like a magnetic field or a physical presence.)

But there's also plenty of stylistic variation on display, something the genre has occasionally lacked; beats range from half-step wobble ("Crunked Up") to 8-bit mosh pits ("Go Tell Them") to the straight-ahead cadences of Detroit techno ("Someone 20"). "3 Minutes," which flickers around the beat like a sailboat's telltale, recalls the generous flux of classic 2-step garage, one of dance music's most deliciously syncopated genres. Among the many highlights — and really, every track brings something to the table, even if it's just the satisfying thwack of a snare hit impeccably tuned and timed — are the seductive, synth-heavy "Pleasure" and the cleverly titled theme-and-variations "26 Basslines." (Count 'em!) But nothing bests "Night," recorded with fellow scenester Coki. It's not hard to understand why the song was perhaps dubstep's biggest anthems in 2007. The melody is almost cartoonish, and the sense of bounce is even more absurd but standing still simply isn't an option.