DJ Zinc

Benjamin Pettit (born 12 March 1972), known professionally as DJ Zinc, is a London-based DJ and record producer working across drum and bass, jungle, UK garage, bassline and bass house. He first rose to wide attention in the mid-1990s within the jungle/drum and bass scene with the 1995 track “Super Sharp Shooter.” He later crossed into UK garage with the 1999/2000 hit “138 Trek.”

DJ Zinc’s entry into the scene came in the 1990s London underground, where he established himself as both a producer and a selector. He has released music under aliases including Jammin and Dope Skillz and has been a member of collectives such as The Ganja Kru and True Playaz. He ran the Bingo Beats / Bingo Bass imprint, using that platform to issue his own material and to shape outputs aligned with his shifting interests. In 2007 he paused making drum and bass; after that break he returned focusing on a house-oriented sound he described as “crack house.” He continued producing and DJing through the 2010s and into the 2020s.

As a producer, Zinc’s work is marked by tight drum editing and decisive bass design. His 1990s jungle/drum and bass productions feature heavily edited breakbeats and compact drum programming — rapid cut-ups and resampling to keep the drums forward and crisp. On the garage and bassline side, tracks such as “138 Trek” foreground swung rhythms around the 138 bpm range and use clipped vocal hooks and rolling bass patterns rather than the stretched amen-style washes typical of some contemporaries. Across his catalog you can hear practiced use of break chopping, pitch and time manipulation, and sculpted sub and midrange bass so the low end reads clearly on club systems.

As a DJ Zinc mixes across tempos and forms. His DJ sets are notable for genre transitions — moving from jungle/dnb rollers into UK garage and bassline, and later into bass house — with an emphasis on maintaining percussive clarity and low-frequency impact. Technically, his approach favors clean crossfades and well-timed tempo shifts so break-heavy material locks with swung garage grooves; he often sequences tracks to preserve rhythmic momentum rather than interrupt it. Signature elements in his output include punchy snares, clipped vocal stabs, precise drum edits, and bass tones tuned for function on large sound systems.

Career milestones and concrete contributions: “Super Sharp Shooter” (1995) is regularly cited as the track that brought Zinc prominence within jungle and drum and bass. “138 Trek” (1999/2000) is a documented crossover hit that moved him into UK garage and related bass-driven club styles; the title itself references the 138 bpm territory associated with that period’s garage/bassline work. He has released material on and operated his own Bingo Beats / Bingo Bass imprint, issued music under the Jammin and Dope Skillz aliases, and participated in scene collectives The Ganja Kru and True Playaz — all of which tie him directly to multiple strands of UK bass culture.

Specific connections and influences in his career are visible in those collective memberships and the genre switches he has made: his association with The Ganja Kru and True Playaz places him in immediate proximity to other UK drum and bass and jungle practitioners, and his move into garage and later house shows a practical influence from the club currents around him in the late 1990s and 2000s. Public records note his 2007 pause from drum and bass and his subsequent house-oriented return described as “crack house,” and he remained active as a producer and DJ into the 2010s and 2020s.

Across decades DJ Zinc has been identifiable by a few concrete through-lines: precise break editing, bass-forward production, genre-hopping DJ sets, and the industry roles of label-runner and alias-user (Jammin, Dope Skillz) — all anchored to his London origins and to landmark releases like “Super Sharp Shooter” (1995) and “138 Trek” (1999/2000). He continues to be cited and booked for those contributions into the 2010s and 2020s.