While it uses similar basslines and bar layouts to other styles, it contains fewer bar-oriented samples and more instrumental layers (both synthesized and natural), harmonies, melodies and ambiance, producing a sentimental atmosphere directed at home listeners as well as nightclub and rave audiences.

[2] In 1999, Fabio alongside Sarah Sandy, began championing a new form of drum and bass they called "liquid funk", with a compilation release of the same name on their Creative Source label.

Although slow to catch on at first, the style grew massively in popularity around 2003–2004, and by 2005 it was established as one of the biggest-selling subgenres in drum and bass, with labels like Good Looking Records (although this label is strongly cross-genred with atmospheric drum and bass), Hospital Records, Liquid V, Creative Source, Shogun Limited, Fokuz Recordings, and artists like Calibre, Netsky, LTJ Bukem, High Contrast, Logistics, London Elektricity, Nu:Tone, Shapeshifter, DJ Marky, Makoto, and Solid State among its main proponents.

[5] Liquid funk has stronger influences from soca, Latin, jazz, disco, breakbeat, and funk music, while intelligent D'n'B or atmospheric D'n'B creates a calmer yet more synthetic sound, using smooth synth lines, deep bass and samples in place of the organic element achieved by use of real instruments.

Liquicity emerged as a YouTube channel in 2008, after 2011 gradually growing out to become a record label and events promoter for new liquid DnB artists, especially in the Netherlands, Belgium and the United Kingdom.