Lekker Collective

Breakbeat is an electronic dance music style built around syncopated, sampled drum "breaks" rather than a straight four-on-the-floor kick. Producers chop, loop, and rearrange classic drum breaks (such as the Amen, Apache, and Think breaks) to create swung, shuffling rhythms with strong backbeat accents. Emerging from the UK rave continuum, breakbeat draws heavily on hip hop’s sampling culture and electro’s machine-funk, while adopting house/acid-house sound design and club-focused arrangements. Tempos most commonly sit between 125–140 BPM (though broader ranges occur), featuring heavy sub-bass, crunchy snares, and edits/fills that propel dancefloors without relying on a 4/4 kick. As a scene, "breaks" spans everything from big-room, party-leaning grooves to techy, nu skool textures and regional variants like Florida breaks. It also functions as a foundational rhythmic vocabulary that informed jungle and drum and bass, and it underpins much of modern bass music.

Dance (as a broad, mainstream club- and radio-oriented style) is pop-leaning music designed primarily for dancing, characterized by steady, driving beats, catchy hooks, and production that translates well to nightclubs and large sound systems. It emerged after disco, blending four-on-the-floor rhythms with electronic instrumentation and pop songwriting, and it continually absorbs elements from house, techno, Hi-NRG, synth-pop, and later EDM. Tempos commonly fall between 110–130 BPM, vocals often emphasize memorable choruses, and arrangements are structured for both club mixing and mass appeal.

Garage house (often called US garage or New York/New Jersey garage) is a soulful, vocal-driven strain of house music that coalesced around the Paradise Garage in New York and the Zanzibar in Newark in the mid-to-late 1980s. It blends the four-on-the-floor pulse of early house with the lush orchestration and harmonies of disco, boogie, Philly soul, gospel, and contemporary R&B. Typical tracks feature warm chords (piano, Rhodes, or the Korg M1 organ), call-and-response vocals, syncopated basslines, shuffling hi-hats, and rich, uplifting arrangements designed for extended club mixes. Where Chicago house often emphasized minimal drum-machine jack tracks, garage house foregrounded songcraft—hooks, bridges, key changes, and church-influenced vocal performances—giving the genre a deeply emotive, dancefloor-focused character.

Jazz is an improvisation-centered music tradition that emerged from African American communities in the early 20th century. It blends blues feeling, ragtime syncopation, European harmonic practice, and brass band instrumentation into a flexible, conversational art. Defining features include swing rhythm (a triplet-based pulse), call-and-response phrasing, blue notes, and extended harmonies built on 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths. Jazz is as much a way of making music—spontaneous interaction, variation, and personal sound—as it is a set of forms and tunes. Across its history, jazz has continually hybridized, from New Orleans ensembles and big-band swing to bebop, cool and hard bop, modal and free jazz, fusion, and contemporary cross-genre experiments. Its influence permeates global popular and art music.

R&B (Rhythm and Blues) is a vocal- and groove-centered popular music tradition that blends blues tonality, jazz harmony, and gospel-inflected singing with a steady backbeat. It emphasizes expressive lead vocals, call-and-response, lush harmonies, and danceable rhythms. From its 1940s roots in African American communities to its later evolutions, R&B has continually absorbed and reshaped surrounding sounds—from jump blues and swing in the early days to soul, funk, hip hop, and electronic production in the contemporary era. Today, R&B ranges from intimate, slow-burning ballads to club-ready tracks, all tied together by a focus on feel, melody, and vocal performance.

Soul is a genre of popular music that blends the spiritual fervor and vocal techniques of African‑American gospel with the grooves and song forms of rhythm & blues and the harmonic palette of jazz and blues. It is defined by impassioned, melismatic lead vocals; call‑and‑response with backing singers; handclaps and a strong backbeat; syncopated bass lines; and memorable horn or string riffs. Typical instrumentation includes drum kit, electric bass, electric guitar, piano or Hammond organ, horns (trumpet, saxophone, trombone), and sometimes orchestral strings. Lyrically, soul ranges from love and heartbreak to pride, social commentary, and spiritual yearning. Regionally distinct scenes—such as Detroit’s Motown, Memphis/Stax, Muscle Shoals, Chicago, New Orleans, and Philadelphia—shaped different flavors of soul, while the style’s emotional directness and rhythmic drive made it a cornerstone of later funk, disco, contemporary R&B, and hip hop.

UK garage is a British evolution of US garage/house that emerged in the mid-to-late 1990s around London’s pirate radio, record shops, and clubs. It is characterized by shuffling, syncopated rhythms, swung hi‑hats, crisp snares, and a pronounced sense of groove at roughly 130–138 BPM. The style blends house’s soulful chords and R&B vocals with jungle/drum & bass sound-system bass weight, often featuring chopped and time‑stretched vocal samples, organ/piano stabs, and warm Rhodes textures. Two major strands formed: 4x4 (straight four-on-the-floor with heavy swing) and 2‑step (broken kick patterns that avoid a constant four-on-the-floor). MC toasting and call‑and‑response vocals became a signature of the scene. Substyles include speed garage (darker, bass‑heavier, often with wobbly LFO bass) and 2‑step (sparser, more syncopated drums). UK garage’s club‑ready energy and vocal sensibility propelled it into the mainstream and laid the groundwork for grime, dubstep, bassline, and UK funky.

UK street soul is a homegrown British strain of late‑1980s to early‑1990s soul that blends smooth R&B songwriting with DIY production, drum machines, reggae‑informed basslines, and hip‑hop swing. Emerging from Black British communities, pirate radio culture, and independent record shops, it favored intimate vocals, warm synths, and groove‑led mid‑tempo rhythms over big‑budget gloss. Typically released on small labels and white labels, the sound sits between Britfunk, lovers rock, boogie, and contemporary R&B. It emphasizes lush chords (minor 7ths and 9ths), punchy programmed drums (often 808/909), and tender, conversational lyricism about love and everyday life. The scene bridged underground and mainstream, laying foundations for later UK neo‑soul, broken beat, and UK garage.