Breakstep evolved from the
2-step garage sound. Moving away from the more soulful elements of garage, it incorporated downtempo
drum and bass style basslines, trading the shuffle of 2-step for a more straightforward breakbeat drum pattern. The breakthrough for this style came in 1999 from
DJ Dee Kline's "
I Don't Smoke" selling 15,000 units on Rat Records, until eventually being licensed to
EastWest in 2000 and climbing to number 11 on the
UK Singles Chart. Following this came
DJ Zinc's "
138 Trek", an experiment with drum and bass production at
UK garage tempo (138 bpm). This instigated a dialog between breaks and garage producers, with Forward>> (a club night at Plastic People, London) playing host to
Zed Bias and
Oris Jay (a.k.a. Darqwan). They were mirrored in breaks by producers such as
DJ Distance. ==References==