You remember putting a donk on everything, right? It was a meme — these English dudes in a studio talking about putting a donk on it, and a “donk” was just this sound like a drainpipe being hit with a bat — as one guy in the video perfectly puts it — only synthesized. The donk functions as a super-ravey bass-drum hit for rave-rap music moving at 150 bpm. Anyhow, it’s a whole massive culture in northern England — donk and bounce are way popular in depressed post-industrial cities like Burnley — that generally makes American “brostep” look like minimal techno. Motherboard went on tour with donk big names the Blackout Crew in 2009. Needless to say, we all learned a whole lot about donk (and the people that love it) in this five-part documentary, originally aired on Vice.__________Reach this writer at michaelb@motherboard.tv.
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