Ben Pettit Portfolio

Research Portfolio: Ben Pettit - DJ Zinc

In this essay, I will be looking at one of the producers who has greatly influenced my work and has a successful career spanning over 20 years in multiple genres; Ben Pettit AKA DJ Zinc.
When I first heard "Super Sharp Shooter" in 1995, which came out on DJ Hypes Ganja Records and his Dope Skillz alias for Six Million Ways; I was astounded as this track seemed to elevate the "jump up" sound of DnB and Jungle to a higher level. At a time when Jungle was thriving these tracks were not pure Jungle in my opinion, due to the fact they heavily sampled Hip Hop and Funk tracks with Super Sharp Shooter using Fred Wesley, Method Man, LL Cool Jay, James brown, Tommy Roe and The Winston’s classic Amen Brother.
Derek is another iconic producer who pioneered Detroit Techno a few years prior to DnB and Jungle. I still use that bass sound as a basis in some of my work these days. Zinc wasn’t the first to use the Warp Bass line; which can be credited to Dead Dread’s “Dread Bass” a track that came out on Moving Shadow in 1994 (another influential track for me). Zinc says he grew up around music in his house “I’d always been into music,” he quoted. “My brother is a drummer and music was always around the house” He also cites Acid House as another one of his major influences whilst going to raves and buying vinyl; which is something I have done, so it was a background I could relate to. Furthermore, a considerable influence on his life was pirate radio, which has also been a sizable influence throughout my life and still is today. The pirate stations were a good place to get your music heard and build a name. In the early to mid 90’s the London pirate scene was a vibrant scene with many stations being one of the only platforms for emerging producers and DJs to showcase their work. At that time, there was no Internet or Social Media to promote yourself, so you had to try to get a show on a pirate station. It was synonymous with attaining the ‘holy grail’ and once you had a show you felt that you had reached the highest echelons, as everybody wanted to play on pirate stations back then. This was one of the main cultural aspects of the early underground rave scene and a lot grew out of this; many careers were launched from the back of pirate radio with many artists going on to make good careers out of music all starting out on the London Pirates. Zinc did not just have an ability to fuse styles, but also to change genres and make quality tracks in other styles as he proved with his massive track ‘Trek 138” which was originally released in 1999 and is a bouncy break beat piece of music at 138