War Has Been Declared in the Jungle Scene!

Jungle and drum & bass producers from around the world are marshaling their troops and sending fire to enemies on Twitter and Soundcloud. Combining soundclash culture with Ice Bucket memability, respected producers like Epoch, 6blocc, Sully and occasinal twitter grouch Om Unit, have been making faux diss tracks, or war dubs, and calling out other producers to do the same. A quick search of the #junglewar hashtag on Soundcloud reveals more than 200 war dubs have been submitted in the past week alone.

As with all conflicts, it is difficult to see where hostilities began – There's no Franz Ferdinand here – but most credit New Zealand producer Epoch, who made a track calling out producers ETCH and Sully on Sept. 17.

…and

Some of the highlights of the conflict include

Gantz

who recreates the Imperial March from Star Wars with stuttered Amen breaks.

Om Unit

's response to Gantz was equally devastating.

Dubstep producers are also joining the ranks. Deep Medi Musik artist Commodo has fired shots at label head Mala.

The competition is a direct descendant of Jamaican soundclash culture where MCs from opposing soundsystems called each other out in an effort to prove who had the champion sound. DJs at the sound clashes would try to one up each other with exclusive dub plates featuring famous artists shouting out their sound system. These sound battles directly influenced American hip-hop where it is a tradition for MCs to make tracks dissing other MCs. This lyrical violence can occasionally spill over into real life violence as seen in great East Coast/West Coast war of the 1990s.

Here's footage from the classic Ninja Man vs Super Cat sound clash in 1991.

Who will win the Jungle war? It's tough to tell with hostilities still ongoing but it appears the real winners are Jungle fans world 'round. The competition seems to have pumped life into the style and ignited creative passions. The massive response from producers worldwide shows the depth of love that still remains for jungle music. This is one war that I hope never ends.

The Tokyo based record store Disc Shop Zero has created a Soundcloud playlist with most of the War Dubs collected in chronological order. Check it out:

Follow our intrepid reporter on Twitter: @dan_rtype