Artist profile · Drum & bass
Good 2Bad And Hugly
Deep in the music.
Closer to the artist.
Good 2Bad and Hugly is producer Jimmy Ryan, whose early hardcore and jungle records grew from Stevenage’s youth-club studio and a background in soundsystems.
Behind the music
About Good 2Bad And Hugly.
Good 2Bad and Hugly is Jimmy Ryan, a producer whose early hardcore and jungle records grew from Stevenage’s Bowes Lyon youth-club studio. Reggae, hip-hop, soul, and funk were already part of his musical life through soundsystems and record collecting before those influences found their way into breakbeat productions.
The youth club had a recording studio supported by Prince’s Trust funding. In a first-person interview, Ryan recalled the difference between the tiny sampling time of his Casio SK-1 and the much greater possibilities of an Akai S950. Access to that equipment gave ideas from his records room to become complete tracks.
His releases through Ruff Kut in the early 1990s included Fantasy. The darker version had a complicated route to release: made early in 1993, it remained unheard commercially until its much later archival issue. The year of a reissue therefore tells only part of the tune’s history.
Ryan continued releasing music through his own catalogue, including the 2019 New Town Sound Boy Vol. 1. Tracks such as Cause It Hurts and Brush Dem Off Skanking connect that later work with the reggae influence behind the earlier jungle records, alongside productions made in other styles.