Well, I think that all genres of music like to take characteristics from each other and I think it's best when they do. Drum & Bass is an interesting one because the genre is not defined by elements that necessarily have to take the forefront, but by the ones which act as the foundations of the track. The importance of this is that you can make a track with any sort of stylistic influences you want, as long as you have the beat and bass in the Drum & Bass mould. Originally, this was chopped up breakbeats such as the famous Amen break we've mentioned, but a plethora of others were sampled from funk and jazz records.

However, back at the end of the 2000s we saw the producer dBrdige (a veteran and legend of the scene) and the duo Instra:mental bring about the 'Autonomic' movement. This was a label, club night and podcast that aimed to realign what Drum & Bass could be thought of. The genre has tendency to copy itself and gets itself into ruts so this movement saw producers flocking to outside influences and bring them back. It was a lot more bare-bones and carefully considered, allowing the music to breath and absorb the other styles. Electro, Techno, 80s, Ambient, Garage and many more were being enveloped in the Drum & Bass mould. A lot of it was actually halftime, so it didn't even resemble the speed that many consider a must. It showed drum & Bass had a lot potential for expansion and could be perhaps more open to interpretation than previously thought. I saw this nice summary of it: "Autonomic is music first, Drum & Bass second. "

Examples:

You can see how far away this is from what most people to think of as Drum & Bass, yet it is still considered so. You can even see hints of the tracks I left in my original post. Artists are now much more aware of the possibility of pushing and pulling the sound whilst still remaining within its ever broadening confines. And, of course, sometimes Drum & Bass may sound like faster garage, but bother genres evolved from Breakbeat Hardcore back in early 90s so they're always going to share stylistic similarities. In fact, if you speed up the standard garage beat you pretty much get the standard Drum & Bass beat. The beauty of music, and art in general, is artists can always borrow, steal and recycle everyones previous efforts and turn it into something totally unique. The opportunity just seems to be rarely taken, or sometimes even frowned upon.