Why did dubstep's founding duo stop playing together?

Skream and Benga grew up together in Croydon, cutting their teeth at Big Apple Records under the shop's resident selector DJ Hatcha, the scene's earliest tastemaker. Alongside Digital Mystikz and Loefah, they formed the core of dubstep's first wave, and their 2003 collaboration 'The Judgement' is one of the tracks credited with pushing the sound out of South London record shops and into wider circulation. Skream went on to score a genre-defining solo hit with 'Midnight Request Line'; Benga released his debut 12" at 15 and dropped 'Diary of an Afro Warrior' in 2008, an album still treated as a dubstep landmark. Over the decade that followed, their paths as producers diverged and they stopped playing together, each building a solo career away from the double act that had launched them.

What brought Skream and Benga back into the same booth?

The pair played their first show together in roughly ten years in October 2023, and kept going from there, splitting time between the DJ booth and the studio. In January 2025 they started recording a full joint album at London's Miloco Studios, documenting the sessions through a joint Instagram account. Their comeback single, 'Good Things Come to Those Who Wait,' landed in June 2025, followed by 'Midnight Control' featuring Emily Makis. They've also picked up outside work as a duo, remixing Charli XCX's 'Von Dutch' and Fred again.. and Amyl and the Sniffers' 'You're a Star'. Helsinki is one stop in a run of shows that has already included a one-off in Sydney, and it lands as the pair keep building toward the album's release.

"A rare joint performance, revisiting the South London sound that helped define a generation of UK bass music."

What else is on Flow Festival's Front Yard stage?

Front Yard, Flow's dedicated electronic programme, is staged inside the disused Suvilahti Power Plant for the festival's 21st edition, running August 14 to 16 in Helsinki. Disclosure plays a DJ set on the Friday, Honey Dijon and KETTAMA headline across the weekend, and the bill also runs to Ben Klock b2b Fadi Mohem, Interplanetary Criminal, Anetha, DJ Gigola and Patrick Mason, with Helsinki collective Korgy curating a full Sunday takeover.