The following articles owe much to the Yahoo ragga jungle boys, most of the facts and opinions below are edited from their chat group, but are so profound and thought provoking and coincide with a lot of Dissident thought so we feel they need to be included:

On soundsystems

Dissident believe that the best way to present the music we play is through a soundsystem of our own. You cannot exaggerate the impact of the Jamacian soundsystem on dance music culture. It was the specially customised sound systems set up in New York parks that gave rise to the first hiphop jams, just as they soundtracked the first warehouse parties and raves, Dillinja, the undisputed heavyweight bass champion of jungle, learnt his skills building and experimenting with speakers. The entire Bristol scene, arguably the most fruitful of the 90's can be traced directly back to the Wild Bunch Sound System.
It's all good to put on nites in clubs (as we often do) but with your own soundsystem comes your own sound. Clubs are run for money. In order to make sure you cover your costs you must fill the place full of people. People want to hear a specific kind of music and will only come if they think this is what they will hear, so this limits musicians' creativity. Once you have the kit, free parties are far cheaper to run, so the money ethos is (at least in part removed). It becomes music for music's sake: people music without any businessmen 3rd parties.

Jungle's musical debts

It is possible to trace a line from reggae, thru dub ,dancehall,ragga to jungle, but you cannot say that's the only line. The things part of multidimensional branching network that extends (eventually) to every piece of music ever written. Some lines in that network are more visible, some are thicker, but eventually its all connected. Drum n bass owes a lot to classical minimalist composers for its stripped down back-to-basics approach, to Steve Reich who is credited with inventing electronic breakbeats, to a whole world of African stuff very few of us ( me included) know anything about, european stuff ( Kraftwork ) and very importantly, dub.
Dub is the root of 2 turntable culture, brought MCs into music and consists largely of just drums and bass. The original DJ grew out of the ghettos of Kingston, Jamaica and built what is known as 'yard culture'. The yard DJ would lay down dub tracks and various beats while the MC chanted ova top the rydmns in order to get the crowd up an movin. This trend quickly spread to NYC and combined with urban American music. This resulted in a club DJ explosion that eventually spread to Europe. True Hip-hop and break beats were an integral part to the devlopment of the DJ art form which ultimately came out of the incredibly inovative Jamaican DJ's like Kool Herc etc. This lead to turntabalism and musical innovation in general (sampling,synth equiptment etc.). The Jaimaican rydmn, the jump up vibe that is so noticeable in almost all DnB, fun electronic music, and good hip-hop is a primal part of the music. Something that cannot be overlooked or discarded simply because its been around for long time.
The richest parts of the network are where lines come together in new ways, reggae came from a confluence of many strands ( 50's US RnB, Church music, old African rhythms, rasta chants )these lines came together and made a unique new strand. Jungle came from a similar confluence in UK around the early 90's, its going thru a phase ( hard 2 step ) at the moment where its getting formulaic and losing sight of some of its roots, but i think its going to flower again soon.
Music will come round and surprise us again.