The funny thing about being from Detroit is that not only is this a hub for some of the most innovative music of all time, but we are also innately connected to the other innovators around the world. Detroit music both influences others and feeds off their energy. This is how I came across an amazing budding sound from Croydon, South London in the mid-2000s called dubstep.

At the time, I was a heavy advocate of Detroit hip-hop online with my website Renaissance Soul that centered around the works of J. Dilla and adjacent artists. In this pre-social media Internet world, it was chat rooms, message boards, and our own crudely designed websites that connected like-minded music fans globally. Everything had its own community and niche fandom. I miss the old Internet in that way.

When you're the main advocate online for Detroit hip-hop, you get to connect with people all over the world that love the music of J. Dilla, Slum Village, Waajeed, and the countless others from the Motor City. While on the surface, this is just hip-hop, Detroit hip-hop found its influences everywhere.

It was through these doors that I would start checking out a variety of online radio shows at the time. I would find myself listening to BBC Radio online. I was able to listen to Benji B's Deviation on BBC Radio 1Xtra and that show was probably one of the most eye-opening shows I ever heard. There was such a variety of music on there that had this underlying vibe that was similar. Benji B also was an advocate for Detroit music and I used to send him, by mail, a box of Detroit CDs and vinyl, and he would play some of the stuff on Deviation.

This is the time I would find out about the UK original dubstep sound. Benji B would play tracks like Joker's "Gully Brook Lane", Skream's "Midnight Request Line", or Coki's "Spongebob", among so many other amazing songs from this thing they called dubstep. Shortly after, as I was continuing to educate myself on this exciting underground movement, I was interviewing Tadd Mullinix (aka Dabrye) for an article and after we were done, we got into a big conversation about all these dubstep records. He game me a bunch of CD-R's with a few dubstep mixes (not sure who did them, not him) and everything on these mixes were amazing.

Those early years of discovering the original dubstep music still has a warm place in my heart. Through all the iterations of what is called "dubstep" over the past 10+ years, all of those early records that came from South London are timeless and there is reinvention of that sound going on right now with a new generation of producers. In its original, organic form, dubstep is a powerful and meditative sound, so its something that really can ever go away.

Just hit play on "Gully Brook Lane" and it will take you on a mental journey.