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Music

Donk

We explore the North England Donk scene, the lowest common denominator of British dance music.

VICE correspondent Jaimie Hodgson goes to the desolate factory town of Bolton in the UK (think Detroit) to report on the music phenomenon called Donk.

Since the advent of acid house in the late 80s, British techno music has been in a long, baffling search for some sort of universal lowest common denominator. Breakbeat, digital hardcore, and gabber all made strong efforts in the race for the bottom, but none of them holds a candle to Donk.

Combining the 150bpm madness of happy hardcore with indecipherable North English rap and then overlaying the whole mess with a single, infuriating “donk” sound, Donk may well be the apotheosis of all ridiculous dance music to date. It is also the only local thing going for an entire population of working-class kids with dwindling outside prospects.

We meet up with Black Out Crew, commonly referred to as the Beatles of the Donk scene. Their video “Put a Donk On It!” has almost 4 million views on YouTube. So come along for ecstasy fueled all nighters into the bizarre scene that is Donk.