What is the Neurofunk genre in music?
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It’s a sub-genre of Drum N Bass, which is one of the very broad classifications of electronic music. DnB or D&B as it’s frequently known, is characterized by being fast in tempo (maybe around 160-190 beats per minute, as opposed to something like House music, which is around 120-140), and with “broken beats”, as opposed to 4×4, which means its kick drum does not fall squarely on the 1, 2, 3, 4 beats in a measure like House or Disco does. Hip-Hop is another broken beat style of music, for comparison.
As far as what makes Neurofunk different from other types of DnB. Neurofunk generally sounds more angry & aggressive. It’s not usually melodic in nature, instead focusing on sound design, meaning the producers spend time making a synth stab sound really crazy and different, rather than using a more basic sound to play a pleasing series of notes like you’d read on sheet music.
Like many genre names in electronic music, I wouldn’t necessarily spend too much time trying to figure out how the genre’s name fits into what it sounds like. I don’t really find most of the genre very funky, and I’m not sure what neuro has to do with music sounds. It just seems like they thought it was a cool name, which is how things happen sometime.
Neurofunk began in late 90’s UK/London, so it’s been around for a while. I’d go on youtube and do a search if you want to hear some examples. [Ed Rush & Optical](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6ju92ABtBU) are famous DnB producers and are an example of very early Neurofunk. As a point of comparison, something like this [DJ Marky](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FL4Y-Uk4yw) from 2004 is an example of melodic DnB, actually has a Spanish guitar melody, and I would consider happy & uplifting rather than angry or aggressive. That style of DnB is actually called Liquid Funk. Again, with the name not being too relevant to the sound.
As with any discussion of electronic music sub-genre differences, I encourage you to poke around on [Ishkur’s Guide To Electronic Music](https://music.ishkur.com/). His text definitions are more editorial and less academic, but it still gives you an idea, and there’s a lot of audio examples to listen to.
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