Tags: tyson fury, oleksandr usyk, D’n’B,
Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk clashed at the first undisputed heavyweight title fight since Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield in 1999, which the Ukrainian came out on top in Saudi Arabia. Despite the fight definitely delivering, we at The Equaliser noticed something else. The use of drum and bass music, especially in open workouts before the fights was rife. In this piece, we look at the rise of D’n’B and how it was under the radar at the biggest boxing match so far this century.
Oleksandr Usyk has been vocal about his love for D’n’B with a viral clip of him dancing to Sub Focus and Culture Shock’s tune Recombine during his open workout for his fight against Daniel Dubois in his last fight.
Fury has also been an advocate for drum and bass as in 2019 he was spotted at a Serum rave and chose Baddadan by Chase and Status as his open walkout song for his fight against Francis Ngannou.
However, DnB had never had a heavy feature during fight nights before, especially songs that were made for the fighters.
Last weekend changed that, as three songs featured heavily throughout the events in Riyadh.
The second of which featured heavily was K Motionz’s tune heavyweight featuring Ardee and Rikodan which is set to be released this Thursday. The song featured in both of Fury’s open workout, The intense stare down during the weigh in and in between rounds of the main fight.
The song, featuring a heavy jump up drop, was released for the fight with K Motionz saying on Instagram “Amazing to see how much support Heavyweight got across the Fury vs Usyk fight”.
The second was Sub Focus and Culture Shock tune Are You Ready that was first played during Usyk’s open workout, during his walk out for the ceremonial weigh in and his post fight celebration after the decision, it hasn’t been announced when it will be announced yet.
The song was made for Usyk in homage to when he danced to Recombine and shares similar sounds to the song.
Sub Focus said on instagram: “We made a custom track for Oleksandr Usyk after we saw him using our song Recombine in training last year!
“Unreal to see him celebrating his victory with it today as the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world! Congrats champ.”
It was never going to be a surprise that the Ukrainian was going to play DnB but to have a song made for him and played at one of the biggest sporting events of the year is huge for the genre.
The third one was played during Fury’s open workout walk to the ring, the tune by On a Vibe (I get High) by Tyrone, FooR and Project One. Fury seems to be a fan of using drum and bass for his open workout walkouts.
Tyrone said on TikTok reacting to the walkout: “Oh my days he is dancing, ahaha, I can’t believe this, big up majestic bro.”
Drum and Bass saw its biggest year to date in 2023 with Baddadan and Vino Bandit by K Motionz featuring Songer charting in the UK’s top 40.
However having the genre played at one of the biggest sporting events of the year, will help the genre grow across the planet. Events such as EDC Las Vegas on the same weekend were a massive success with over 500,000 people attending the festival.
It is clear that Drum and Bass is growing into a more mainstream recognised genre, with the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world helping that become a reality.