Jungle DJs: valuing music in dance culture

Dance Culture Interdisciplinary Conference, University of Leeds, June 1998.

The intention behind this paper is to consider the way Jungle DJs form value judgements within their particular musical domain. Its safe to say that any certainties of cultural value we may have once felt we had have been well and truly disturbed in today's Postmodern climate. The Jungle DJ as an organic 'music specialist' situated within a subculture of the technology- and consumer-based world of club culture provides an especially relevant 'arbiter of taste' to investigate. By analysing interviews with two semi-professional Jungle DJs this paper explores the basis for, and the role of, value judgements within this area of dance culture.

Firstly, it is necessary to consider the approach this paper takes concerning the process of evaluation. The raw material for the DJs' performance is the twelve inch record. And like any cultural text it survives in the market place due to its ability to meet the needs and desires of those with cultural power. Obviously, within dance culture, the record's function as a cultural text is seen ultimately in its 'provocation of people to dance'. The directness of this social function encourages the perspective that the text is not the issuing source of value. The value of the record is a construction arising from particular interests, located in a specific social and historical context. The source of value in this case is the site where the construction of musical judgements takes place.

For the 'clubber' and DJ this 'site' involves the adoption of a 'way of life' which makes a refusal of the traditional distinction between culture and society. It is a community which exists within and around its cultural texts and practices. Members of a 'scene' will share musical tastes, consume common media, have a preference for people with similar tastes, and exhibit other coded behaviour, including dance styles and dress sense. It should be mentioned in relation to this that the Jungle scene is remarkably diverse in terms of its musical sub-genres. This is a result of its origins in the work of producers and DJs from different backgrounds as it developed within the already diverse and continually changing world of British dance-music. Following the work of Pierre Bourdieu and as this paper goes on to discuss, these distinctions of taste provide important opportunities for the formation of social identity and the distribution of power.

The distribution of power that concerns us in this instance is that which circulates around DJs. Since the 1970s Disc Jockeys have come to be recognised as experts in dance music and its markets. Today's professional DJ is easily able to earn a living; either purely as a DJ, or as a producer and artist, and as owner of an independent record label (which, when successful, end-up being assimilated into one of the majors - in essence doing the work of an A&R department). The status of the DJ as a musician, through his or her ability to select and mix records, is becoming an increasingly accepted and appreciated form of artistry, obviously this is especially true from within club culture. For semi-professional DJs it is becoming more common, with the increased availability of technology, to be active as producers or artists of the music they are affiliated with. As such the DJ is placed at the productive centre of the club's social and musical space. Identifying the club as a site of consumption appropriate to music whose site of production is the studio (1995A, p. 85), Sarah Thornton describes DJs as 'artists in the construction of musical experience' (p. 65). Quoting again from Thornton, if records are the 'musical axis around which club crowds gather and scenes revolve' (p. 86) then DJs (and DJ-producers) come to possess significant amounts of cultural power and authority through their role as definers and creators of the cultural form at the centre of this 'way of life'. Along with the other subcultural clusters of club culture and given the primacy of music as an organising, social force within club culture, the Jungle scene is a DJ-led culture. DJs are empowered to lead by the majority of the subculture - the 'crowd' - by virtue of each DJs ability to provide what the 'crowd' desire. The DJ obtains this ability by investing both time and money into 'knowing' the scene. This is a gradual process of enculturation and predictably 'would be' DJs emerge from within the ranks of the club-going audience.

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