Story 4 min read
Bubbling — The Genre You Didn't Know You Were Hearing
A dancehall record played too fast in The Hague. That accident became a whole genre, and it's still in everything Chuckie plays.
The accident
Late '80s, The Hague. DJ Moortje — Curaçao-born, Netherlands-based — accidentally plays a dancehall record at the wrong speed. Way too fast. The crowd goes nuts. And just like that, bubbling is a thing.
It spread through the Antillean and Surinamese communities in Dutch cities, bouncing back and forth between Holland and the ABC islands. For young Clyde Narain this wasn't some exotic genre — it was just what people played at home.
From The Hague to the charts
Chuckie (plus Afrojack, Diplo and others) took bubbling and used it as the foundation for a new wave of dance tracks. He's said himself that a lot of the grooves in his records are things he was already playing in the '90s, just updated.
Listen to 'Machika' — the J Balvin hit he co-produced. That rhythm? That's bubbling, evolved. A mistake in a Hague nightclub, now in the global charts. Wild.
You'll hear it this summer
That Caribbean bounce is in every set he plays. Check the dates if you want to feel it in person.