Magnetic Man

With their Magnetic Man project, DJ-producers Skream, Benga and Artwork’s intention was to take dubstep to the masses, and take it they did. I actually saw them live about five times between 2010 and 2012 and their shows were super slick, professional and full of impact.
I had followed their individual careers, particularly Skream and Benga, and dubstep as a subgenre of electronic music since the likes of Mala, Coki and Loefah had first burst onto the scene. But, Skream and Benga were equally as important in popularising dubstep in its early days, having minor hits and smashing it regularly on the festival circuit, often DJing together.
Magnetic Man’s breaththrough came with their huge commercial dubstep anthem "I Need Air," and what followed was a string of polished, dance-floor ready dubstep tunes and a Top 10 self-titled debut album. When I first saw them at the Warehouse Project in 2010, the three of them sat behind their laptops, each one of them performing a particular role: one playing drum samples, one handling the bass and the last one arranging leads and other samples. This is the process they stuck to for all their shows throughout their tours. The trance-like euphoria of tracks like of "Getting Nowhere," "Perfect Stranger," (which launched the career of one Katy B, who performed with them every single time I saw them) and "Anthemic" was much stronger live than listening to the album, and the bass of "Fire" and "The Bug" was crushingly heavy, especially when I saw them at Sonar 2011 in Spain. Magnetic Man have gone quiet recently, despite rumours of a second album, with Benga apparently retiring and Skream proclaiming he is done with dubstep. The genre may have become quickly outdated, but if anyone can bring some credibility back to dubstep it’s Magnetic Man.