20/05/2023
First emerging in Valencia, Spain in the early 90s, the genre fused hard dance genres like eurodance, happy hardcore and hard trance. The fast, bouncy beats with over-the-top happy melodies were originally pioneered by masters like Chimo Bayo, Nando Dixkontrol and EX-3 and was played throughout clubs like Chocolate, Psicodromo and Xque. During that era, a wave of British DJs would begin to transport records from Spain back to the UK, unknowingly kickstarting a whole subculture based on the sound.
When Makina first infiltrated UK club culture in 1999, it did so in tandem with an already burgeoning dance scene that was pushing a much harder edge, more euro-inspired style of music. “You had the Italian scene, then Eurodance, Techno, Happy Hardcore and then DJ Scott went to Spain,” says DJ Rush on the origins of Makina in the UK. “He came back with a load of Spanish records and that’s when the Makina stuff came through.”