As with any underground music, the UK's drum 'n' bass scene has pushed forward its heroes -- like Goldie, Grooverider and Roni Size -- into the strobe lights of pop culture. Primed for the challenge, Roni Size (Ryan Williams) may have been subjected to an inordinate amount of examination, hype and pressure, but he has demonstrated an exceptional focus on the things that really matter -- his craft, musical friends and building.

In 1997 Size and the Reprazent clan (DJs Krust, Die, Suv, MC Dynamite and singer Onallee) scooped up the UK's prestigious Mercury Music Prize for their first album, "New Forms", drawing the kind of wide attention to jungle antedated only by Goldie and his 1995 epic, "Timeless".

Indeed, almost two years after its UK release, Reprazent's double-set stands as one of the most sophisticated works to emanate from the 90s movement; an exemplar of 'intelligent' drum 'n' bass infused with a subtle jazz flavour and sweetened with two-and-a-half teaspoons of New Age soul. "New Forms" represents a blend of organic live instruments and studio tech and seems to reference the creative roots of jungle in hip-hop, rave, dub, soul, funk, jazz and rare groove.

Reprazent's watershed victory in the Mercury stakes went against the political odds. After all, they were nominated along with Radiohead, Prodigy and Chemical Brothers, all of them more likely to appeal to the industry's implicit rock ethic. At any rate, what followed was unprecedented mass coverage of Size and Reprazent, together with drum 'n' bass. A culture nurtured in the streets and clubs of urban Britain found itself recast as an international media phenomenon. The broadsheets picked up on the story. Even the US music industry magazine "Billboard" highlighted the significance of the win. Later, in its wrap-up of the year, the trendy urban American "Vibe" magazine nominated Size and Reprazent as 'the new artist most likely to succeed' over those far more obvious homegrown candidates from the hip-hop and R&B side of things.

Size is not one to take all the credit but rather acknowledges the support of Reprazent's label Talkin' Loud (and its parent PolyGram) in breaking them. 'The good thing about what we're doing is that a lot of people involved believe in it. And when you find that belief, which is quite rare nowadays, people like "Vibe" take notice and then they make statements. Now we have to live up to it.'

Size concedes that the exposure has irrevocably changed things for them. After years of hard work -- DJing, live performances, record releases -- the posse reaped the mainstream rewards. 'As soon as the Mercury Prize came into effect a whole other spectrum of people who'd never even heard of us jumped onto the bandwagon,' Size reflects. 'All that work over the last three, four years just kind of blew open in the space of a month, so one minute we're talking to the people who've been supporting us for years and years, and the next thing you know we've got a lot of people who are just generally interested -- a whole batch of new supporters. So we end up repeating ourselves; talking about the same things that we've done 100,000 times ...' Size laughs wryly.

If you can sense any frustration it is more likely that this evening he is simply too tired for interviews. In fact, Size finally admits that, contrary to the vampire-like existence of most music-makers, he has been in the studio since the early morning and now, at 11.30 p.m., he is ready to bow out. By now he has warmed up, though. This musically precocious individual may have been famously expelled at 16 from an education establishment prone to overlook genuine creativity, but he exudes a natural intelligence -- and burns with the quiet intensity and determination so characteristic of the Scorpio. He is quick to respond with ever imaginative and articulate answers. It would seem that Size was destined to succeed in life -- with or without the system behind him. And, for him, his life always lay in music.

He has not forgotten his roots in Bristol, where the various members of Reprazent first came together as friends with a shared musical interest. After Size, a diehard hip-hopper, left school, he sought out a youth organisation known as the Basement Project. At the time, he figured that this was the only way he would find any support for his musical predilection. Later, Size successfully applied for the job of music teacher. On this occasion, Krust (formerly a member of the hip-hop crew Fresh Four) lost out. The pair -- each already familiar with the other's face -- befriended each other in the street. And so, the core of Reprazent crystallised in 1992. But the two were first swept up by London's emergent breakbeat rave scene, the vibe of which they brought back to Bristol, also the home of luminaries like Nellee Hooper, Massive Attack and Tricky. Die and the others came into the fold through a series of similar connections. The triumvirate of Roni, Krust and Die set up their own label Full Cycle (and its sister Dope Dragon), as well as releasing material on the London-based V Recordings operated by Brian Gee and Jumping Jack Frost. They made a name for themselves with seminal releases -- among them Roni and Die's 1993 "Music Box". Eventually, Size would give the bulk of the Mercury Prize winnings to the Basement Project -- they got him started.

Reprazent may have evolved into a super sound system along the lines of Soul II Soul and Massive Attack -- but they could also be described as the jungle Wu-Tang Clan. Far from being a vehicle for the visions of Size alone, it is every bit a collective. Nevertheless he has emerged as its natural leader. Still, Size says that the posse reached a conscious decision to go with a major to reach a wider audience. 'There's only so much we could do on independent record labels and we really wanted to take it further.' And yet, the outfit made sure they chose the right label in Gilles Peterson's PolyGram-affiliated Talkin' Loud.

While underground club acts such as the Detroit techno innovators have often expressed ambivalence about courting the mainstream or 'crossing over', Size is obviously determined to banish such ambivalence. 'Crossing over where? I don't know where we're crossing over to. I'm talking to someone in Australia [laughs]. I just think that now you have to come up with new terminology. People talk about "selling out" and "mainstream" and "crossing over". I think that all those just sum up one thing -- and that's "universal", do you know what I mean? Basically, our music is travelling all over the universe -- by satellite, by Internet -- and there's people out there who want to hear it, so we're taking it to them. It's not like we're trying to water down or change what we're doing. We're building bridges; we're definitely not burning them. There's a whole lot of people now who have come into our world, which is exciting to me, you know what I'm saying? The bigger the party, the better.'

And so now Reprazent have cut another album. 'We always said we would only do one album and that would be it. But we learnt so much from the first time around that we wouldn't do ourselves justice -- and the people who've been supporting us justice ... So we're gonna do this next record and take it from there.' Size won't give away any hints about musical directions. 'Expect the unexpected and you might be prepared.'

Nevertheless, Australians got an exclusive insight into Roni's next moves when he played around the country (at the Big Day Out) with Krust and Dynamite, testing out some new tracks.

Manifesting itself in the early 90s, drum 'n' bass continues to exert its influence over British youth culture -- unlike those related species, hip-hop, house and techno, it is arguably an indigenous form seeding itself in the multicultural inner cities. And offshoots with peculiar names constantly germinate. Size regards such proliferation as something of a marvel. 'All these different names -- like, for instance, you've got tech-step and darkcore or whatever -- they're just like trainers; they're makes of trainers, do you know what I mean? You've got Nikes; you've got Reeboks; you've got different camps who specialise in their sound ... It's good. The more labels there is, to me, then the more there is to choose from. And if there's more choice, then everyone's happy.' Size himself is unsure of where it's all going. 'The beauty of what we're trying to do is that we're not even looking that far ahead, because where ever it goes, our music will surely follow. I'm quite glad to let things [pauses to find the right word] metabolise as it goes. We're doing a lot of vocal stuff; we're doing a lot of videos; we're doing a lot of film. We're hitting it all to our hearts' content.'

If Size and Reprazent have influenced the scene in any way, he feels it's been more in terms of ideology than musicianship: the collective has proven that following an independent ethos can pay dividends. 'What I see is people from ground-roots level building their own independence. People always worry about independent labels disappearing. They will never disappear. I think independent labels are just gonna grow stronger, because there's gonna be so many people fighting to keep their own independence.'

The biggest threat may yet come from the UK media -- as quick to destroy and consume as it is to nurture. From day one, the British music press recognised "New Forms" as a classic. But, Goldie, clearly jungle's first superstar, experienced a media backlash with the release of his second volume, "Saturnz Return". Is Size wary of something similar occurring to him and Reprazent? 'I work in the studio and there's four walls around me. And when I've got four walls around me and I'm in front of a computer, what goes on outside doesn't really affect me. And even when I do step outside into that world, if somebody's got something to say then we'll talk about it -- challenge me; I'm always up for a challenge. If somebody's got something to say, then they need to step to me and have this verbal exchange. Let's have it out ... What I don't suggest is that people criticise other people's craft. To me, it's like being a painter. People paint because they WANT to paint, not because they HAVE to paint. So why criticise somebody's craft? I don't get it myself. That's just me.'

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