To explain bassline is to explain the endless tension of gender in British dance music.

Have some short-hand.

First, in the late '80s, there was acid house. Then jungle. And then 2-step, grime, and dubstep. A single, all-connecting, 20-year breed, in other words, of U.K. underground electronic genres that continues to grow, mutate, experiment, fray, and explode, keeping the culture locked onto the future.

Throughout the evolution, the focus of British black dance music has essentially swung back & forth from a male and female approach to sound, with the jungle, grime, and dubstep scenes finding a more boys-dominated audience while the acid house and 2-step ones welcomed a more universal, girls-friendly group of followers and producers. Of course, it's a reductive umbrella-idea in the face of so many other influences, but this dynamic, this struggle, between U.K.'s genres has been so tangible and prevalent for so long that it'd be a mistake to ignore.

K-Punk, for FACT Magazine, writes, "It wasn't only the dominance of grime that meant that the pendulum of the 'hardcore continuum' was stuck at the ultra-masculine pole. Dubstep, too, suffers from the same oestrogen-depletion, and both genres to some extent have their origins in a reaction — an over-reaction — to the 'feminine pressure' of late-'90s 2-step."

Rinse FM's Geenus, talking to Stranger contributor Brandon Ivers for XLR8R last month, says about U.K. funky, bassline's cousin, "The funky thing came about because girls had stopped dancing in clubs — [grime] was more of a show thing. So people could just dance again, you know? It was 70% females. And now it's gone the completely opposite way again."

Unlike U.K. funky, the bassline genre hasn't yet bubbled up to wide acceptance, despite it being more ecstatic and free-wheeling of the two. With a more intent emphasis on female vocals and 2-step's strange, hyper-galloping rubber-ropes of bass that slash out in all sorts of directions — think of precursors like 2001's "Kinda Funky" by Jammin or "Booo!" by Sticky — the sound is restless and welcoming and sometimes glad to be ridiculous, refreshingly re-injecting the warmth and exhilaration of ecstasy's bliss into grime and dubstep's ferocious paranoia.

It brings us to London's Dexplicit, who is bassline's best.

A known name thanks both to remixes of Akala, Wideboys, and M.I.A. and his production for the likes of Nana and Lethal Bizzle's enormous "Pow," he's been on a tear this year, with four volumes so far of his Dexplicit Content collection of grime and bassline instrumentals as well as, finally, Digital Kinesis, his full-length debut.

There are other big names in the sound, such as T2, Platnum, Delinquent, or A1 Bassline.

But it's Dexplicit who's done this.

And this, chopping up Orbital's "Chime" for some grime newsroom action.

And this, suggesting a parallel-world Beyoncé who's got music as charismatic as herself.

Dexplicit's the one that's pushed the sound the furthest, balanced it just right between pleasure and aggression, the feminine and the masculine, displaying the sound's rave roots without just repeating them.

While it's unfortunate he and Britain's tastemakers appear to be shrinking away from the bassline tag, it's been a year-long treat to hear him assimilate the underground's latest possibilities into a flood for the clubs.

Now, with a little luck, the sound might get more than a chance.