Errol Francis, better known as DJ Dextrous, is a British DJ, producer and composer.Watts, Janet (2002)
Jailhouse rock, rap and reggae
, ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

'', 15 December 2002. Retrieved 10 February 2013

Personal life

Dextrous was born and raised in

Stoke Newington Stoke Newington is an area occupying the north-west part of the London Borough of Hackney in north-east London, England. It is northeast of Charing Cross. The Manor of Stoke Newington gave its name to Stoke Newington the ancient parish. The ...

London Borough of Hackney London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, London, England. He was classmates with

DJ Hype Kevin Ford (born 1968), better known as DJ Hype, is a British jungle and drum and bass producer and DJ. Biography Hype first became involved in music as a teenager in 1982, assisting PJ and Smiley with their sound system Heatwave in East Lo ...

and Smiley and PJ from the group Shut Up and Dance, and DJed at

Brooke House Secondary School BSix Sixth Form College: Brooke House is a sixth form college located in Upper Clapton, London, England. It was established in 2002, giving students in Hackney the opportunity to study at a college close to where they live. Brooke House has previ ...

, where he played trumpet in the brass band, and sang in the school choir. Rude Boy Keith, his partner from their King of the Jungle record label also attended the boys school at the same time, as well as Daddy Earl (twin brother of Smiley and DJ Hype's MC).

Career

Dextrous took his DJing up a gear when he started to play at parties and small clubs in 1987. At around the same time, he began putting his studio together, based around an

Atari 520ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...

FM,

Casio is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturing corporation headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Its products include calculators, mobile phones, digital cameras, electronic musical instruments, and analogue and digital watches. It ...

HT3000 keyboard, Casio CZ-101

Synth A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and f ...

and

Yamaha Yamaha may refer to: * Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services, established in 1887. The company is the largest shareholder of Yamaha Motor Company (below). ** Yamaha Music Foundation, an organization estab ...

''TX7'' Sound Module. He released his first record in 1992, on Ruff Quality Recordings (the sister label of Shut Up and Dance Records) entitled "Ruffneck Biznizz" which topped the

Kiss FM Kiss FM, Kiss Radio or variants may refer to: Asia-Oceania * Various Kiss FM-branded stations in the Philippines ** 95.1 Kiss FM, Lucena, Quezon ** 102.3 Kiss FM, Tagbilaran, Bohol * Kiss92 FM, Singapore * KISS 969, Sri Lanka * Kiss Radio Taiwan ...

House charts. This track was one of the precursors to the

jungle A jungle is land covered with dense forest and tangled vegetation, usually in tropical climates. Application of the term has varied greatly during the past recent century. Etymology The word ''jungle'' originates from the Sanskrit word ''jaṅ ...

scene, with its sped up

breakbeat Breakbeat is a broad type of electronic music that tends to use drum breaks sampled from early recordings of funk, jazz, and R&B. Breakbeats have been used in styles such as hip hop, jungle, drum and bass, big beat, breakbeat hardcore, and UK ...

s and

reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...

/ dub basslines. In 1993, Dextrous met

Teebone Teebone is an English UK garage/ drum and bass producer and DJ, best known for the 2000 hit " Fly Bi" which features the MCs Kie and Sparks. In the 1990s, Teebone together with DJ Dextrous produced under a number of aliases including Fusion ...

and they started producing together under a number of aliases including Fusion Forum, producing tracks like "Vintage Keys" and "Summer Mist", on

Reinforced Records Reinforced Records is a British breakbeat hardcore, jungle, and drum and bass record label, first founded in 1989 by 4hero and based in Dollis Hill, London. Reinforced is one of the groundbreaking record labels of the genre.Reynolds, S. (1998) ...

Music labels

Dextrous decided to start his own label, King of the Jungle Records, with Rude Boy Keith (real name Keith Lawrence), who was working for Shut Up and Dance at the time, and who also attended Brooke House School during the time Dextrous,

, Smiley and PJ were there. Dextrous and Rude Boy Keith also became a DJ and MC double act that travelled far and wide, spreading their sound through

dubplate A dubplate is an acetate disc usually of 10 inches diameter, traditionally used by studios to test recordings prior to mastering for the subsequent pressing of a vinyl record, but pioneered by reggae sound systems as a way to play exclusive music ...

specials and PA-ing their latest recordings. During that time, the pair signed to Suburban Base to release ''Da Kings of the Jungle'' trilogy. Dextrous was one of the leading lights within the ever-growing jungle scene, and could also be heard on Sunday mornings playing on

Kool FM Kool London, also known as Kool FM, is a former London pirate radio station that now broadcasts as an internet radio station, playing jungle, drum and bass, and old skool. Kool is generally regarded as being instrumental in the development ...

, one of the main

pirate radio Pirate radio or a pirate radio station is a radio station that broadcasts without a valid license. In some cases, radio stations are considered legal where the signal is transmitted, but illegal where the signals are received—especially w ...

stations in London. Never one to keep still, Dextrous parted company with the radio station and then subsequently King of the Jungle Records in 1995. By then, he had already launched two further record labels, State of the Art Recordings alongside partners Paul Brown and Jon Stewart, and Subversive Recordings (formerly Subliminal Recordings) which featured a number of collaborations with longtime production partner

including "Selectors Roll" which featured on the Suburban Base compilation album, ''Drum & Bass Selection 3 (The Dub Plate Selection)'' and ''Top Gun''. These labels allowed Dextrous further creative freedom, the former being his platform to express his

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

roots. As a trio, Paul, Jon and Dex recorded under the moniker Solid State. Collectively, they have been credited as one of the pioneers of the liquid funk scene. Together they created the sound they branded "urban fusion" to cover all of the creative influences evident in their music, including jazz, dub,

Detroit techno Detroit techno is a type of techno music that generally includes the first techno productions by Detroit-based artists during the 1980s and early 1990s. Prominent Detroit techno artists include Juan Atkins, Eddie Fowlkes, Derrick May, Jeff Mil ...

garage A garage is a covered structure built for the purpose of parking, storing, protecting, maintaining, and/or repairing vehicles. Specific applications include: *Garage (residential), a building or part of a building for storing one or more vehicle ...

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...

and

. During this time, Solid State recorded for

Fabio Fabio is a given name descended from Latin '' Fabius'' and very popular in Italy and Latin America (due to Italian migration). Its English equivalent is Fabian. The name is written without an accent in Italian and Spanish, but is usually accented ...

's Creative Source label as well as Renegade Recordings and

Alan McGee Alan John McGee (born 29 September 1960) is a Scottish businessman and music industry executive. He has been a record label owner, musician, manager, and music blogger for ''The Guardian''. He co-founded the independent Creation Records label, r ...

's Eruption Records (

Creation Records Creation Records Ltd. was a British independent record label founded in 1983 by Alan McGee, Dick Green, and Joe Foster. Its name came from the 1960s band The Creation, whom McGee greatly admired. The label ceased operations in 1999, although ...

' sister label).

Aliases

Dextrous has recorded drum and bass/jungle and several other genres including broken beats,

UK garage UK garage, abbreviated as UKG, is a genre of electronic dance music which originated in England in the early to mid-1990s. The genre was most clearly inspired by garage house, but also incorporates elements from dance-pop, R&B, and jungle. It ...

nu jazz Nu jazz (also known as jazztronica, or future jazz) is a genre of jazz and electronic music. The music blends jazz elements with other musical styles, such as funk, electronic music, and free improvisation.Definition from Sergey Chernov, June 7, ...

, R&B, dub and

jazz fusion Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and jazz improvisation, improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, ...

under many aliases: * Transcendent Minds * Solid State * DJ Rus De Tox * Forbidden Zone * Fusion Forum * Retro-Spec * Da Kings of the Jungle * Back2Back * The Regulators * Tit 4 Tat * E.F.Jay He also regularly composes the library/production music for radio and TV.

Awards

He provided the music for the documentary '' Feltham Sings'', which won the

BAFTA Award The British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTA Film Awards is an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to honour the best British and international contributions to film. The cere ...

and an

Ivor Novello Award The Ivor Novello Awards, named after the entertainer Ivor Novello, are awards for songwriting and composing. They have been presented annually in London by the Ivors Academy (formerly the BASCA) since 1956, and over 1,000 statuettes have been a ...

for "Best Original Music for TV" in 2003.Draper, D.A. et al (2004) ''Duffy and Armitage: Working with the Literature Anthology for AQA A'', Heinemann, , p. 49 He was also nominated for a

Royal Television Society The Royal Television Society (RTS) is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present, and future. It is the oldest television society in the world. It currently has fourteen r ...

award for "Best Original Music for TV" in the same year.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dextrous, Dj DJs from London Club DJs English drum and bass musicians English record producers English television composers English male composers Black British DJs Ivor Novello Award winners People from Hackney Central English people of Dominica descent Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Electronic dance music DJs