  broken beat or bruk is an electronic music genre that can be characterized by syncopated rhythm typically in 4/4 meter, with staggered or punctuated snare beats and/or hand claps. artists in this area mostly have a drum and bass, house, hip hop, techno or acid jazz background. broken beat also has its roots in 1970s jazz fusion and has been influenced by artists such as lonnie liston smith, the mizell brothers (producers for donald byrd, bobbi humphrey and johnny hammond in the mid-1970s), herbie hancock, george duke, and others. one might also hear echos of disco, 1980s contemporary r&b and funk (shalamar, prince), early electronica (kraftwerk), hip hop ("planet rock"), 1980s new wave (depeche mode, new order), house and techno in broken beat. ==history== broken beat first appeared in the 1990s and was pioneered by ig culture, and the release of the 4hero album two pages was influential on the emerging sound and scene. appearing in the western parts of london, the genre is also referred to as west london, mainly because goya music's offices were in london's ladbroke grove, w11, as were most of the participating artists' studios. ig culture is credited with kick-starting the scene with his new sector movements releases for people music. the transition was to a more abstract form of drum and bass. many artists that started releasing through 4hero's reinforced label are now considered pioneers of broken beat (a landmark artist for the label being sonar circle aka domu). meanwhile in detroit, established techno artists like carl craig and stacey pullen experimented with the music they were making, trying to add jazz elements and breaks to their sound. as the music is still based on classic detroit techno and usually has a harder sound, it is sometimes referred to as broken techno. this eclectic mixture was picked up by the detroit and jazz affiliated uk techno producers kirk degiorgio or as one and ian o'brien, who tried to form it into a more soulful variation which further influenced the development of
Breakbeat English_styles_of_music