‘The Brits aren’t as stupid as us – but they’re less than the whites’: how drum’n’bass unites Brazil and the UK | Drum’n’bass

WAgner Ribeiro de Souza did not carry much in his bag. A local mix of techno, house and jungle music, several documentaries and a VHS tape with footage from the club where he plays every week: little pieces of music that he, under the moniker DJ Patife, and some friends were building in São Paulo, Brazil.

It was 1998. He went to London to speak to the office of Movement, one of the most important drum’n’bass nights in Britain, with one goal: to launch a version of the party in Brazil. “I played a tape recorded at the club,” Patife recalls. “And when Bryan Gee saw like 2,000 people singing, he said: ‘Let’s go to Brazil right now!'”

From that time, drum’n’bass began to flow between the two countries, at the right time. “By the end of the 90s, drum’n’bass had become boring in the UK,” says Patife – the jungle chaos, which appeared in the UK at the beginning of the decade, began to be made into a very hard, macho drum’n’bass music. The swimmingor rocking, Brazilian style, based on bossa nova samples and clear instruments, also inspired the entire event. “We brought together two interesting things: Brazilian music and electronic music,” says Patife. “Everyone drank from Brazil!” Likewise, the UK “reopened the doors of UK electronic music to the Latin world, from fast-paced garage to two-step and grime.”

The streets of that culture – where Brazilian sound meets breakbeats and UK bass – are now more popular than ever thanks to a new generation of artists on both sides of the Atlantic such as British producer and DJ Sherelle. “There is a natural connection between Brazil and the UK: our musical tastes are very similar,” he says. “And if you’re from a working-class or lower-class background in the UK, music is the only way to deal with things and express yourself, and I’ve noticed that (it’s the same) here for a lot of artists.”

Patife put down roots in London, living there from 2000 to 2017 before moving to the countryside of Portugal where he is now a bus driver – he dreamed of becoming one even before he became a DJ – but he is still celebrating a lot in Brazil and the UK. This weekend he sings on The Good Newsa new festival dedicated to Brazilian music taking place in Leyton Jubilee Park, London, is one of the last events of the British Council’s. UK/Brazil Cultural Season. “I saw that I was saving money in the last two years,” he says, and is looking forward to returning to the city where he has lived for many years.

Back in the 1990s, he and his fellow Brazilian drum’n’bass regular DJ Marky were among the next big things in São Paulo’s electronic music scene. “Marky used to work in a record store,” says Patife, who fell in love with UK club music with a friend through record books and electronic music magazines such as Mixmag and DJ Mag. Marky sang to him on The Dark Stranger, a 1993 song by the British duo Boogie Times Tribe: “My God, what is that? My life changed from that moment.”

Patife and Marky had a history of hip-hop and Black Brazilian music, and the ability to find the grittiest, breakneck sounds in electronic music, against the pop and antiseptic dance that dominated the best bands in São Paulo. Growing from their records and gigs, both were in their 20s when they managed to save enough money to travel to London for the first time. Three stages ending in Brussels, including a train ride, and finally a stop in the UK. “In our first two hours in London we met Goldie while walking in Soho,” says Patife.

From the end of the 90s to the beginning of the 2000s, Patife, Marky and their friends – Andy, XRS, Drumagick, Mad Zoo, among others – built a cult of drum’n’bass in São Paulo underground, in groups like Sound Factory and Arena. But slowly it reached its peak: in October 2000, they played at a free stadium in the center of the city, which was. it is broadcast on national television and is still celebrated today as a defining moment in Brazilian electronic music.

When drum’n’bass grew, the DJs left the UK music scene to create their own, such as Sambassim and Patife, XRS and Fernanda Porto – a modern bossa nova remix that became the first Brazilian drum’n’bass song to be played on BBC radio, in 2000. Then, in 2002, in 2002, Ramina’s song LKRS is a DJRS song by British Stapper Marky and DJRS MC, with the help of sizzling guitar – made the UK Top 20, and the trio became one of the only drum’n’bass acts to appear on Top of the Pops.

After Patife joined him in the Movement office, Bryan Gee fell in love with the hot Brazilian sound, samba-laced and released 2001 The Brasil EP on his label V Recordings: the first Brazilian drum’n’bass release on a UK imprint. Gee compares the Brazilian twist on junglism to the loose, exploratory sound of a younger genre, liquid drum’n’bass: “It’s all alive. Brazilian music has a lot of samba, breathing, so it was easy to get accepted in the UK because people were into the liquid vibe that Fabio and Caliber were pushing.”

Gee has performed many times in Brazil since his first encounter with Patife, as well as other British acts such as Roni Size, Adam F and Goldie. He admires the new generation of young Brazilian artists including Spy, L-Side and Level 2: “They don’t have samba in their music, but there is a Brazilian vibe in it. And they love and respect history.”

Also Brazilian musicians such as Ajulliacosta jumping on the beats of drum’n’bass, Brazilian drum’n’bass and rock with new UK names, such as Nia Archives – two of the best releases, Baianá and Maia Maia, Brazilian sample music – and Sherelle, who performed for the first time in São Paulo at the Gop festival in April at Gop.

“I’ve been waiting since the beginning of my career to play here,” says Sherelle, wearing the football jersey of the Corinthians team from São Paulo, when I met him at the festival.

Born in 1993, Sherelle was a child when the first drum’n’bass discussions between the UK and Brazil took place. But in the mid-2000s, sports became a new avenue for the likes of Drumagick and Patife – some of their achievements were featured in the Fifa Street franchise. Sherelle said: “The rotation of the song was amazing. It shows a real time how amazing Brazilian drum’n’bass was and still is.”

During her tour Sherelle also played in Rio at the Speedtest rave, which was launched in 2022 by DJ and producer Chediak and cultural innovator Diogo Queiroz. The party and records revolve around the fastest and most explosive electronic music that comes from the UK and Brazil: a terrifying amalgam of baile funk, post-dubstep and myriad breaks from jungle and drum’n’bass.

“We’re introducing baile funk into UK club music, and that’s bringing a whole new music scene, with artists and voices from the slums and favelas,” says Chediak. He says that the number of MCs from Brazil’s most popular baile funk scene is interested in drum’n’bass music, “which raises the possibility of making a song that will break through”.

Chediak believes there is something in UK electronic music that continues to inspire artists in Brazil. “They have something that is not as complicated as we do here, but it sounds a lot less than European and especially US music,” he says. “And that goes hand in hand with what we’re known for making music, which transcends other genres. It’s like a sound, a timbre; it’s not familiar, it feels new.”

Patife toured Brazil with the group Speedtest at the end of 2025. Hailed by the youth as a drum’n’bass oracle, he brought his signature mix of fun and deep notes. He said: “I was surprised by what I saw with these kids. “I thought bass music was where we left off, in the 2000s underground, but now I see a continuation – and there is a long way to go.