ROAR gets gritty with JUMPING JACK FROST in the second of our three-part interview as he opens up about the dark times that he and the jungle scene endured – and how both have thankfully bounced back…and some!

In typically honest fashion, the unashamed former bad-boy from the streets of Brixton – AKA NIGEL THOMPSON – admits he revelled in the violent times jungle experienced in the mid-90s, before he helped change the face of drum and bass by winning the Mercury Music Prize with RONI SIZE & REPRAZENT, who Nigel and his V RECORDINGS co-owner BRYAN GEE had discovered several years earlier.

However, as drum and bass went global, those heady days of touring and partying around the world in the wake of that seminal award win led to years of drug-fuelled partying, and an eventual addiction which, Nigel is heartbroken to admit, saw him take money from V to fund his habit.

Thankfully now very much back on his feet following a spell in rehab and ongoing counselling, and still at the forefront of the jungle drum and bass movement, Nigel discusses the importance of mental wellbeing and therapy, and his sterling work as an ambassador for the We Are Hummingbird mental health and suicide prevention not for profit organisation – https://www.wearehummingbird.com.

Oh, and Nigel also lets us all into a secret…that he initially felt “EMBARRASSED” by his biggest tune, the 1994 banger BURIAL under his alias LEVITICUS, before that all changed one “weird” day when he heard every sound system at the Notting Hill Carnival blasting it out to thousands of adoring bass heads!

Part 3, where Nigel discusses the good and bad of the current drum and bass jungle scene drops FRIDAY, before the following week we meet HOSPITAL RECORDS founder, DJ and producer, LONDON ELEKTRICITY (AKA TONY COLMAN), who will speak publicly for the first time about the storm of allegations of racism which engulfed the label last summer, as well as how – like Frost – he also helped change the face of drum and bass. Frost’s artwork today was drawn by DnB Illustrated.

Check her out at https://www.instagram.com/dnbillustrated/

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