Breakbeat Hardcore

Breakbeat hardcore is a British rave style that emerged around 1990, fusing the sampled breakbeats of hip hop with acid house and techno at tempos near 140 BPM. Producers chopped the *Amen* break and funk drum loops into frantic patterns and layered them with rave piano stabs, hoover and mentasm synths, deep sub-bass and pitched-up vocal samples. Made for warehouse parties and pirate radio, records by *The Prodigy*, *Acen* and *SL2* defined a brief, intense peak before the style split in 1993 into jungle and happy hardcore.