Electronic dance music has been around since the 1970s with disco and since then it has garnered a number of subgenres under its belt. One of the most well known subgenres is dubstep, a genre that gained popularity in the early 2000s in Croydon, London. It can be traced back to Jamaican dub and overall reggae sounds that were carried over by Caribbean immigrants. Some key players in pioneering the dubstep sound are Tempa Records and Big Apple Records as they nurtured artists like Benga, Skream, and Digital Mystikz, who came to shape the dubstep sound we’re familiar with. Dubstep had its peak years in 2006 -2010.

Dubstep made its American debut in 2005 when DJs Dave Q and Joe Nice decided to host a dubstep-themed night, inspired by the electronic music scene in London. This event, Dub War, as it was called, was vital in the spread of dubstep in the US. By far the biggest American dubstep artist is Sonny John Moore, otherwise known as Skrillex. He embarked on his music career in 2004 when he joined a hardcore band as the lead singer. He then left the band and started his solo career in producing and DJing. His career as Skrillez started in 2008 when he released his EP, “My Name is Skrillex.”

The dubstep train came to a halt in 2014 as it began to die out. The genre became commercial and mainstream, which meant lame. The genre became oversaturated and was filled with painfully generic tracks that were indistinguishable from one another. Skrillex was often criticized for making such tracks, many fans saying that they didn’t have the same nuance traditional dubstep is known for. Skrillex also became the stereotype of new dubstep listeners who were heavy partiers and more unsophisticated. New genres were also cropping up in the electronic music scene, famously trap being one of them. Artists who helped popularize the genre moved away from dubstep and started to explore different genres. Dubstep as a genre was seen more as a joke because of its quick rise and fall and overall fanbase it accrued during its short time in the spotlight, thus being the more “cringey” subgenre under the EDM umbrella.

Even though dubstep fell from grace, there is still a thriving underground scene. Many artists are returning to the darker, more elaborate sounds of the dubstep that’s reminiscent of the early Croydin days. Pillars of the community that have been in the scene since its inception like Rinse FM, a London based dubstep radio station, are still going strong and highlights underground artists that stay true to the original dubstep sounds. A new generation of artists are taking up the mantle and reigniting the spirit that was there back in the early 2000s.