Dubstep fans have been taking some serious blows this week. With Feed Me announcing his retirement from DJing a few days ago and now Skream declaring he will stop producing dubstep in favor of Disco and Funk because he believes the Dubstep movement is over, it makes one wonder how many more artists are losing faith in the genre.
There has been and always will be those elitist EDM fans who claim its all become so “mainstream” and this person and that person has “sold out.” Their opinions are generally pretty easy to brush aside. But when producer legends such as Skream start to join the party making statements such as, “Dubstep is just a name now. It doesn’t have a meaning any more and the movement is over. It’s like the end of a relationship but it’s ended on a high. I’ve done Dubstep since I was 14 but there’s no way I’m going to be dictated to. I stopped because I’m not inspired by it anymore,” it can make the staunchest fan question where the genre is headed.
While it is hard to say whether it is boredom or a change in the genre that has led to Skream’s lack of inspiration for Dubstep either way EDM fans should try and see this as a positive development. We’ve had the pleasure of experiencing Skream’s dubstep production since 2006. Now that he will be focusing solely on Disco and Funk and re-kindling his collaboration with Benga and Artwork, known as Magnetic Man, fans should be excited for the fresh new sounds to come. Benga made a similar decision around this time last year, stating that he didn’t want to be a part of Dubstep anymore, holding the opinion that different genres and their producers are the future. Skream has stated that the new Magnetic Man album will be representing a whole new concept and has taken inspiration from Daft Punk’s new album Random Access Memories.
I’m excited to see what comes out of Magnetic Man in the future, it’s always interesting to see the ways that seasoned veterans of the EDM game adapt to the changing tastes of the fans today.