The Godfathers of Drum and Bass who are also considered the originators of the music genre, Fabio and Grooverider are legends of modern music. With fans on a global scale, they are industry heavyweights who have pioneered and heavily influenced the genre over the last 25 years. Since aligning professionally, they have noticed an incremental increase in the popularity of the genre with an increasing global appeal. The pair can be credited with providing exposure for some of the top artists in the genre including, DJ Fresh, Chase and Status and Sigma through their award-winning BBC Radio 1 show.
The talented pair were among the first UK DJs to play House music and formulated an entirely new category of music, which would later evolve into Jungle/Drum and Bass. As the Godfathers of the genre, they are representatives of the streams and offshoots of D&B including jump-up, liquid, minimal, technical, and half-time styles among others. They were voted into the 25 Greatest DJs of all time in a Mixmag Poll and in 2015, Fabio and Grooverider won the prestigious Outstanding Contribution to Music award at DJ Mag’s Best of British awards.
Their first venture was with Pirate Radio, in their early days they provided energy of the streets in the illegal and massively attended raves of the late 80s. Such raves included Fantasia, Biology and Sunrise and formed the early days of Jungle Techno, which periodically became the world’s first weekly Jungle night at Rage in London. Fabio consequently channelled the kinetic soul of the music into Speed, a new outlet alongside LTJ Bukem and in conjunction with Groove Connection. This led to Swerve in the late 90s, as his Liquid Funk vibe successfully ignited with the unique musicality of D&B and generated hits Midnite and Shake Ur Body.
Grooverider released The Prototype Years, and this was succeeded by his album, Mysteries of Funk. His remix of Charade is considered a D&B classic that is timeless. Both artists have been involved in compilations and in 2010 they released Masterpiece through the Ministry of Sound. They have also featured on prominent UK Stations including Kiss FM and BBC Radio One. The successful pair’s influence on upcoming artists is truly profound, and those artists look up to them as role models.
