Breakbeats were created when DJ Cool Herc, with the help of two turntables and one mixer, mixed the rhythm sections of different tracks seamlessly one after the other. And thus Hip Hop was born. The use of breakbeats in a high speed gave birth to Jungle.
Breakbeat is the genre with the most history and, arguably, the most success, which explains why, in this day and age, it is the most fractured music with the most hangups with just about everything else. It's problem has to do with the fact that it now tries too much to sound like itself, using prestige and tradition to get by where talent and ingenuity can not. For what it's worth, the most interesting sounds coming out of Breakbeat can mostly be found on mainstream Top40 radio rather than the romantic underground scene it claims to have ties to.
