Back in the early '90s, Michael West (aka Congo Natty, fka Rebel MC) was taking everything he'd learned studying his collection of reggae and dancehall 12"s, bought with his hard-earned cash at the nearby Third World record shop, and bringing it to uninitiated London audiences, many of whom were more interested in the hip-hop coming out of New York. His first album, Rebel Music, was more hip-house than anything else, but there was still a yardman bent to it.

Later, he would become a central figure in the early days of what would become jungle (a term he's said to have coined after hearing a tape with the chant "all the junglists", referring to people from Kingston, according to Simon Reynolds' Energy Flash book) and had built extensive connections between Jamaica and London. Raised on the likes of Bob Marley, Burning Spear and Gregory Isaac, by the turn of the '90s, the North Londoner was exploring UK's emerging hardcore scenes and mixing in as much Jamaican influence as possible.

An early example of this nexus, between Jamaican reggae and dancehall and London's burgeoning rave and hardcore scenes was "Tribal Base". The melody from Enya's celtic banger "Orinoco Flow" is probably the most immediately recognisable sample here, but it's the drums—a sped-up sample of the breakbeat from "Don't Change Your Love" by the Five Stairsteps—that offer the most exciting glimpse at where things were headed.

Although Rebel MC's flow owes more to hip-hop than dancehall (despite the actual lyrical content) and the breaks are closer to '80s rap breaks than Amen junglism, Barrington Levy's rich, soulful hook and Tenor Fly's roughneck ragga MCing bring this far closer to jungle's inception. Essentially, this was jungle before such a thing even existed.