MC Conrad

Conrad Thompson, known professionally as MC Conrad, was a British MC, vocalist and producer whose work sat across drum and bass, jungle and the liquid-funk end of the spectrum. He also worked in Acid Jazz, Nu Jazz, Dub Techno, Synthwave and UK R&B. Thompson was active from the 1980s until his death on 30 April 2024. He spent his later years living and working in Birmingham, United Kingdom, having relocated there around 2010.

Thompson’s entry into electronic music came from 1980s hip‑hop and breakdancing culture. He moved into the early‑1990s rave and drum‑and‑bass scene, shifting from MCing over hip‑hop breaks to performing and recording within the faster tempos and chopped breakbeats of jungle and DnB. He became widely known through a long‑running collaboration with LTJ Bukem and through releases on Good Looking Records, which brought his vocal and production work to an international drum‑and‑bass audience.

As a producer and vocalist, Conrad’s sound blended jazz and R&B textures with dancefloor drum programming. His production approach favoured chopped and time‑manipulated breaks rather than straight four‑to‑the‑floor kits; snares and claps were often processed with tight compression and short ambience to sit forward in the mix. Bass design in his tracks typically paired warm sub‑weight with filtered midrange movement — a technique that kept low end solid for club systems while allowing chordal Rhodes or synth pads to occupy the midband. He used reverb and long delay tails to create atmosphere, and his arrangements leaned toward the smoother, melodic side of drum and bass associated with liquid funk and the Good Looking aesthetic.

Conrad worked in multiple roles across his career. He performed as an MC and vocalist alongside LTJ Bukem in live settings and appeared on releases issued through Good Looking Records. Later he recorded and DJed under the alias Con*Natural, expanding his output beyond vocal work into solo production and DJ sets. In 2020 he founded Resonance, a digital‑first label created to issue music and archival material in online formats. That label founding is one of the concrete moves he made to control release flow and embrace contemporary digital distribution.

Specific influences in Conrad’s trajectory are visible in his roots: early hip‑hop and breakdancing shaped his rhythmic phrasing as an MC; the early‑1990s rave period and his work with LTJ Bukem steered him toward jazz‑inflected, atmospheric drum and bass. Across Acid Jazz, Nu Jazz and UK R&B touches, his vocal work retained melodic, soulful inflection while his production stayed attentive to break manipulation and spacious pad work. Conrad Thompson’s recorded collaborations with LTJ Bukem and his releases on Good Looking Records remain central reference points for his contribution to the scene, and his Con*Natural recordings and the Resonance label mark his later output and activity.