walking upstream…
Bonobo
sourcesWikipedia · DJ Mag · Beatportal · Clash
Simon Green grew up in rural Hampshire in a house full of his parents' English folk jams — music he wasn't drawn to himself, but was 'grateful to be around.' What pulled him in instead was the sample-based hip-hop of the early '90s and the trip-hop bubbling out of Bristol, and by his late teens in Brighton he was teaching himself drum programming and crate-digging for source material. Debuting on a 1999 Tru Thoughts compilation as Bonobo, he released his first album, 'Animal Magic,' the following year, then moved to Ninja Tune, where he's stayed since. Across 'Dial 'M' for Monkey,' 'Black Sands,' 'The North Borders,' and 'Migration,' he traded pure sample-collage for live strings, horns, and world-music textures without losing the original hip-hop-bred patience for a slow, breathing groove.
the sound in question
2013
CirrusBonobo
walk the tributaries ↓
DJ Shadow1990s · Trip hop / Turntablism
Green has named the Mo' Wax orbit — DJ Shadow above all, alongside Future Sound of London and Meat Beat Manifesto — as the touchstones he grew up on, describing his own early aim as 'trying to make music between the spaces of all of those things.' DJ Shadow's 'Endtroducing.....' proved that a record built entirely from other people's recordings, with no rapping and barely a hook, could still land as a fully emotional listening experience. That's the permission Bonobo's earliest, most sample-dense work operates on.
listen: upstream & here
1996
Midnight in a Perfect WorldDJ Shadow
2000
TerrapinBonobo
listen forSet 'Midnight in a Perfect World' against 'Terrapin' — both let a hazy, half-buried melodic sample (strings on one, a sitar-like tone on the other) drift over a slow, dusty break, with long stretches where nothing changes but the record still holds your attention.
A Tribe Called Quest1990s · Hip-hop / Jazz rap
Green has pointed to Native Tongues-era hip-hop, A Tribe Called Quest specifically, as the sound that shaped his teenage listening before he started producing. He's said his sampling instinct came straight 'from the hip-hop records I'd been listening to' — a preference for warm, clearly 'played' or recorded sources over anything synthesized. Tribe's jazz-sampling, unhurried head-nod grooves are the template underneath Bonobo's own flute-and-breakbeat instrumentals.
listen: upstream & here
1990
Bonita ApplebumA Tribe Called Quest
2003
Pick UpBonobo
listen forCompare 'Bonita Applebum' with 'Pick Up' — both float a loose, live-sounding flute or keys hook over an unhurried, swinging drum pattern, groove-first rather than hook-first.
Portishead1990s · Trip hop / Downtempo / Electronica
Reviewing Bonobo's debut 'Animal Magic,' Clash wrote that it's 'far more indebted to the nineties trip-hop scene than his later work,' with 'the sounds of Portishead and Massive Attack' dripping 'from its every pore.' Portishead's contribution to that scene was mood as architecture: vinyl-crackle atmosphere, minor-key strings, and a hip-hop break slowed down until it feels cinematic rather than danceable — a blueprint audible in Bonobo's own hushed, vocal-led downtempo tracks.
listen: upstream & here
1994
Glory BoxPortishead
2006
Days to ComeBonobo
listen forPlay 'Glory Box' next to 'Days to Come' — both drape a restrained, breathy vocal over a slow, dusty break and minor-key strings, closer to film noir than to a dancefloor.