Coming off from my last article about the first two Dubstep Allstars entries, I thought I would share some of my favourite unreleased tracks from the early Dubstep era, tracks that I still go back to. Most of these I heard listening to sets from the likes of Youngsta, Hatcha (our two protagonists from my last article), and also DJ Chefal, Cyrus, Slaughter Mob, etc.
For better or for worse, an important part of Dubstep is the dubplate culture it inherited from Jungle and DnB (who, in their turn, took it from the Jamaican soundsystem tradition). Briefly put, dubplates are unreleased tracks pressed on 10-inch records, not for commercial release, but for producers to hand out to DJs as exclusives, sometimes only making a couple of copies. This practice was encouraged by two things: 1) DJs trying to "one-up" their peers and competitors; and 2) the constant search for the new by DJs and ravers/listeners alike. Alex Nagshineh further explains what dubplate culture is in this article.
So let's get right to the list. As they are unreleased tracks, all of these have been ripped straight from archived radio sets. So you'll hear voices from MCs, interacting with the listeners. The last track, the Digital Mystikz remix, is probably the ultimate dubplate, of which there are only two copies (one owned by Mala himself, and the other by Joe Nice). It is the Holy Grail of dubplates, if you will.
The producers making up this list (Skream, Benga, Loefah, Mala, Coki, D1) are the main producers that shaped the "Croydon Sound"(in turn, shaping what we now recognize as being "Dubstep") making these beats mainly for Hatcha and Youngsta. To my knowledge, they date from 2003 to 2006.
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