Back in print after two decades, Junglist tells the compelling, comic, stream-of-consciousness story of four young Black men coming of age among the raves and Jungle music scene in London during the 1990s.
Layered with poetic verse, prose and humour, this cult classic of underground British fiction documents the rollercoaster ride of a weekend spent raving during Jungle’s cultural takeover in the summer of 1994. Jungle, with its booming basslines and Jamaican patois, burst from the pirate radio stations and mixtapes into cavernous clubs, pulling a generation of Black British ravers with it.
Originally written as a way to document street culture as it became a feature of London, charting a time when working-class kids, both Black and white, merged to dance as “one family”, Junglist is both a testament to Black British sound system culture and a rawthentic account of inner-city life.
‘‘A brilliant, neglected text of London gnosis, backstreet Modernism.”
“The world’s first “Jungle novel”, and a real headtrip… here is a living language, taking on new and weird shapes from its concrete habitat.”
“An amazing document of what London and UK clubbing was like at this time… Like the best club nights, you just don’t want it to end.”
“Junglist doesn’t just allow you to hear the sound of a subculture through its pages, it implores you to feel it.”
“A text that speaks to the soul of what was nothing less than a revolutionary moment in the unfolding of British multiculturalism.”
