The northern England crew specializes in dance music at its most juiced and jacked up. Like the best nights out, their new album passes by in a blur.
You get about 15 seconds to do some deep breathing exercises (or huff a thick line) before Full Wack No Brakes launches into full force. Opener “450 - 2020 Mix” is a high-octane ode to dirtbikes, petty robberies, and living large, and it sets the tone for what’s to come: a blistering dose of big grins, bassline, and organ house. It’s dance music at its most juiced and jacked up. And it’s amazing.
BBCC comprises MCs Kane, Clive, and GK, along with a loose raft of regular collaborators that includes S-Dog, PC Bill Bacon, and the group’s manager Dr. Google. They hail from Bradford, a city in the north of England, and have risen to hyper-local fame off the back of viral videos that include chaotic comedy sketches and downing inhuman amounts of booze through traffic cones. They’ve soundtracked ads for diners and car washes. Promo for the second single from Full Wack No Brakes, a thumping club anthem titled “Guns Up,” involved seeing which of the crew could endure the most pops from a paintball gun. Earlier this month, they caught the ear of the UK’s original pop-star bad boy, Robbie Williams. Dr. Google says he’s lining up a collab.
The crew exist on the fringes of an overlooked bassline scene that, since emerging from northern hotspots in Sheffield, Leeds, Huddersfield, and Bradford in the early ’00s, has wobbled along on its own steady path. While celebrating occasional forays into the charts—T2’s “Heartbroken” in 2007, or DJ Q’s “You Wot!” the following year—the sound has largely been left to develop alone. Bills stacked with acts like Notion, Deadbeat, Skepsis, Holy Goof, Bassboy, and Mr V would, pre-COVID, regularly pack out raves under the nose of the UK’s music media. BBCC’s first mixtape, titled Git Up Mush, was sold direct to fans and stocked in vape shops and convenience stores.
But while bassline’s most recent iterations have been typified by an aggressive, crunchy mid-range sound that’s closer to jump-up dubstep and drum ‘n’ bass, BBCC’s up-tempo blend of rumbling low-end and silky, pitched-up female vocals has more in common with the canonical MC-led sounds that once incubated in Sheffield’s Niche nightclub or Sheridan’s in Dewsbury. The beats here are lean and precision-engineered, like the Ducatis and Husqvarnas that pepper the lyrics. The group’s comic edge and old-school styling have brought comparisons to People Just Do Nothing’s hapless Kurupt FM crew. But the likeness is a shallow one. While Kurupt FM score laughs skewering the characters that typify aging underground scenes in the UK, BBCC are no parody act. As ambassadors for their own northern working-class culture, they’re strikingly authentic.
They make bangers, too. “Active” is bouncy xylophone 2-step; “New Machine” goes four-to-the-floor with a fairground ride riff; “Loco” is a purist organ house pumper. They switch flows and wrap syllables around the catchiest choruses this side of the pop charts. It’s a tonic to the po-faced tendencies of Business Techno, or the chin-stroke posturing of artsy metropolitan club scenes. A reminder that raving is, ultimately, about getting loaded and letting loose. Like the best nights out, Full Wack No Brakes passes by in a blur. The next day you piece it together from hazy recollections and suspect video clips—before pulling out the traffic cone and cracking a fresh six-pack, ready to go again.
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