Celebrating thirty years of Garage Sounds

BBC Radio 1 Xtra, the national public broadcaster's youth and urban music channel, celebrated Thirty Years of UK Garage on Sunday evening, 18th August.  UK Garage evolved, according to Wikipedia, from the mix of urban music and communities that made up London's club scene in the early to mid nineties.  LGBTQIA people were a part of this mix of influences, as they had been early adopters of house music, from which garage split during the period around 1990-1992. Early promoters of speed UK garage included the Dreem Teem and Tuff Jam, and land based  pirate radio stations such as London Underground, Magic FM, Upfront FM, and Freek FM.  Wikipedia notes that by 1999, UK Garage was having a major impact on the charts.  They write "With the continued support of pirate radio stations such as Rinse FM, Ice FM, Deja Vu, and Flex FM, the soaring popularity of UK garage saw 1999 take the genre into the mainstream, breaking into the music charts. Production duos Shanks & Bigfoot and Artful Dodger were very successful with the tracks "Sweet Like Chocolate" (the first UK garage track to hit number one in the UK) and "Re-Rewind", respectively. After the platinum-selling success of "Sweet Like Chocolate", the floodgates had opened."  Now UK Garage was returning to be a sound in LGBTQIA+ clubs, although trance continued its dominance in the community.  In the years that have followed, garage has had several revivals and remains a popular urban music, and in turn influenced other styles such as grime.  Happy Birthday to the genre from all garage fans at ShoutOut.