On paper, jungle – one of the defining, pioneering sounds of 90s rave music – and the music of Sinéad O’Connor might not be the most obvious pairing. And yet, in 1995, the renowned Irish artist (later called Shuhada’ Sadaqat) requested UK junglist M-Beat remix her track Fire on Babylon after the pair had met briefly backstage at Top of the Pops the year before. The result was glorious: expansive, shifting beats with her emotive vocal calling out on top.
For M-Beat, real name Marlon Hart, the reason it worked was simple: “Her music had realness to it,” he says. “The common ground that we shared was that our music was very sincere.” At Top of the Pops, he recalls, “I’m an unknown council estate boy who has been lucky to have some songs chart. And I’m meeting this big star. But she was down to earth, she said she really liked our music.”
