Primate
Marcel Matheussen, aka Primate, is a Belgian producer and DJ based in Ghent. He has been active since 2018 and is best known inside drum & bass for jump-up and heavier DnB productions. His releases appear on labels including SmallPrint and Exert Records.
Primate grew up in a family of writers, actors and jazz musicians. He began producing as a child, which fed into an early interest in rhythm and arrangement. Publicly available biographical detail beyond that is limited, but those family ties and his childhood start are repeatedly cited when discussing his musical background.
As a producer Primate’s sound centres on weight and contrast. Tracks foreground heavy sub and mid‑range basslines with tight, edited breaks rather than long, loose drum washes. He often pairs jump‑up style bass stabs and crowded mid‑range with short, heavily processed break edits and snare layering to give hits more presence in club systems. On the gentler side of his output you can hear liquid‑style atmospherics and jazz‑tinged chord stabs that reflect his background; on the heavier side he uses saturation, parallel compression and aggressive low‑pass automation to push punch through the mix. He works across adjacent styles too — from drumstep and dubstep textures to grime and UK garage rhythmic touches — which shows in his drum programming and bass design choices.
Career highlights tied to verifiable facts: Primate has released music on SmallPrint and Exert Records and has performed internationally. He is noted for heavy‑hitting, bass‑driven tracks and energetic live sets. He has worked collaboratively with Captain Bass, a credited collaboration that appears in profiles of his career. Those releases and performances have positioned him around the jump‑up DnB cluster while allowing him to draw on dancehall, bassline and liquid elements in production.
Concrete influences explicitly cited in source material are his family’s jazz background and early start in production. The collaboration with Captain Bass is the clearest external connection on record. Beyond these facts, public information about specific tracks and wider collaborations is limited; what is consistently verifiable is Primate’s base in Ghent, his activity since 2018, his role as producer/DJ, and his releases on SmallPrint and Exert Records.
