![](/https/music.apple.com/assets/artwork/1x1.gif)
![Broken Beat Essentials](/https/music.apple.com/assets/artwork/1x1.gif)
West London was the incubator of an explosive underground scene at the turn of the century—in fact, broken beat was such a well-kept secret that you could only dance to it at one club night. Every Sunday, CoOp’s cult parties would rattle the sound system at the Velvet Rooms with spasmodic, Afrofuturistic beats, as pioneers like 4hero and Bugz evoked the transcendental jazz of Sun Ra and the rhythmic spirit of Fela Kuti. And when CoOp found a new home at East London’s Plastic People, artists such as IG Culture and Domu started ruling the genre with their staccato drum machines and ambient soul jazz.