Ryan Owen Granville Williams (born 29 October 1969), better known by his stage name Roni Size, is an English DJ and record producer. He came to prominence in 1997 as the founder and frontman of Roni Size & Reprazent, a

drum and bass Drum and bass (also written as drum & bass or drum'n'bass and commonly abbreviated as D&B, DnB, or D'n'B) is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by fast breakbeats (typically 165–185 beats per minute) with heavy bass and sub- ...

collective. That year they won the

Mercury Prize The Mercury Prize, formerly called the Mercury Music Prize, is an annual music prize awarded for the best album released in the United Kingdom by a British or Irish act. It was created by Jon Webster and Robert Chandler in association with the ...

for their debut studio album '' New Forms''.

Biography

Early life

Williams, son of

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of Hispa ...

n immigrants, grew up in the

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, city, Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Glouces ...

suburb of

St. Andrews St Andrews ( la, S. Andrea(s); sco, Saunt Aundraes; gd, Cill Rìmhinn) is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 , making it Fife's four ...

. He cites

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 ...

as one of his early influences. He was expelled from school at the age of 16 and started attending house parties run by Bristol soundsystem

The Wild Bunch ''The Wild Bunch'' is a 1969 American epic Revisionist Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien, Ben Johnson and Warren Oates. The plot concerns an aging outlaw ga ...

(a predecessor of Massive Attack). He learned the basics about music production at his local youth club, the Sefton Park basement project, which provided record players, a mixing desk, drum machines and samplers. He worked with his brother's comprehensive collection of Studio One records and later set up a home studio, buying a sampler.

Full Cycle Records and WTP

His future musical partner, Krust, had been a member of the Fresh 4, whose "Wishing on a Star" reached the Top 10 of the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

in late 1989. Williams, Krust, Suv and DJ Die founded Full Cycle Records. Aided by Chris Lewis, Roni Size founded the record label WTP ("Where's The Party At?") as part of Circus Warp. With Dave Cridge who also DJed for Circus Warp and ran Replay Records Bristol, the two would visit The Record Basement in Reading and in 1993, Full Cycle and Dope Dragon were established.

RCA Records RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also ...

employee Bryan Gee was an early admirer. In 1994, when Gee founded V Recordings, the first releases were Krust's ''Deceivers'' EP as catalogue number V001 and ''Agility'', the debut release of Roni Size and DJ Die, as V002.

Collaborations and solo 1997 - 2007

In April 1997, ''Roni Size & Reprazent'' had their live debut at Tribal Gathering. Williams created the group to perform live tracks he had been working on in the studio. The group included Full Cycle members Williams (Roni Size), Krust and Die, operating 'banks of equipment'; as well as Dynamite MC (vocals), Onallee (vocals), Si John (bass) and Clive Deamer (drums) taking centre centre stage. The group's debut studio album, '' New Forms'', was released on 23 June 1997, with singles featuring the vocals of

Onallee Onallee (also known as Tracey Bowen) is a British vocalist and songwriter best known for being part of Reprazent, a British drum and bass act formed by Roni Size. In 2016, she produced an audio visual performance called ''Futurism 3.0'' with D Pr ...

including "Brown Paper Bag", "Heroes", "Share the Fall" and "Watching Windows". The album went five times

platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Pla ...

, won the

, and Williams returned to the studio to

concentrate A concentrate is a form of substance that has had the majority of its base component (in the case of a liquid: the solvent) removed. Typically, this will be the removal of water from a solution or suspension, such as the removal of water from ...

on his output for V and Full Cycle and Dope Dragon. Following their mainstream breakthrough, Reprazent had a series of

festival A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival c ...

appearances in the summer of 1997. Their ''New Forms'' LP won the

Mercury Music Prize The Mercury Prize, formerly called the Mercury Music Prize, is an annual music prize awarded for the best album released in the United Kingdom by a British or Irish act. It was created by Jon Webster and Robert Chandler in association with the B ...

. The singles from the album all featured singer Onallee, whose call for the music in "Brown Paper Bag" is a signal ravers still respond to. The album went platinum, and Roni Size and his collaborators returned to the studio. Williams subsequently teamed up with DJ Die and Leonie Laws in

Breakbeat Era Breakbeat Era was a British music group from Bristol. It consisted of producers Roni Size and DJ Die and singer Leonie Laws. The group released a studio album, '' Ultra-Obscene'', in 1999. It peaked at number 31 on the UK Albums Chart The Offi ...

, before returning to Reprazent to record the second album, October 2000's ''In the Mode'', which included guest vocals from Zack de la Rocha of

Rage Against the Machine Rage Against the Machine (often abbreviated as RATM or shortened to simply Rage) is an American rock band from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1991, the group consists of vocalist Zack de la Rocha, bassist and backing vocalist Tim Commer ...

and

Method Man Clifford Smith, Jr. (born March 2, 1971), better known by his stage name Method Man, is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He is known as a member of the East Coast hip hop collective Wu-Tang Clan. He is also half o ...

Wu-Tang Clan Wu-Tang Clan is an American hip hop group formed in Staten Island, New York City, in 1992. Its original members include RZA, GZA, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God, and Masta Killa. Close aff ...

. In 2001, he returned to the studio and started working with Tali, who had recently arrived from

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...

on her album ''Lyric on My Lip''. In this time, he also produced ''Touching Down'' – released in October 2002. This, his first truly solo album, included 16 tracks segued into one hour's set. He remixed the

Zero 7 Zero 7 are an English musical duo consisting of Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker. They began as studio engineers and in 1997 formed the group Zero 7. Their debut album, '' Simple Things'', was released in 2001 in which their song " Destiny" stayed ...

song "End Theme" the next year. He came back to V Recordings in 2005 with the release of ''Return To V'', which included vocal collaborations with artists such as Beverly Knight,

Jocelyn Brown Jocelyn Lorette Brown (born November 25, 1950), sometimes credited as Jocelyn Shaw, is an American R&B and dance singer. Although she has only one ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart entry solely in her name, she has an extensive background in the musi ...

Vikter Duplaix Vikter Duplaix (born October 14, 1969), is an American singer-songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and DJ. Duplaix has traditional soul singer's beginnings – being raised in both Philadelphia and Augusta, Georgia singing in church ch ...

and

Rodney P Rodney Panton, also known as Rodney P (born in Balham, London, 12 December 1969) is an English MC, as well as a radio and television personality who first gained attention via the UK hip hop scene in the 1980s. A former member of UK hip-hop group ...

2008 - present

Williams resurrected Reprazent in 2008 with the release of a deluxe edition of ''New Forms'' on Universal. The reformed band included original members Dynamite MC,

and bass player Si John alongside Yuval Gabay ( Soul Coughing), D Product, Jay Wilcox and Pete Josef. Roni Size and Reprazent toured in some of the biggest festivals in Europe, including

Bestival Bestival was a four-day music festival held in the south of England. It had been held annually in the late summer since 2004 at Robin Hill on the Isle of Wight. In 2017 the festival relocated to the Lulworth Estate in Dorset. The event was organ ...

Glastonbury Glastonbury (, ) is a town and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low-lying Somerset Levels, south of Bristol. The town, which is in the Mendip district, had a population of 8,932 in the 2011 census. Glastonbur ...

, Lovebox, EXIT and

Rock Herk Herk-de-Stad (; french: Herck-la-Ville, ) is a city and municipality located in the Belgian province of Limburg. On 1 January 2018, Herk-de-Stad had a total population of 12,661. The total area is 42.83 km² which gives a population density ...

. As a result, they were among the nominees for Best Dance Act from the UK Festival Awards. The band started 2009 with a tour of Australia as part of the

Good Vibrations Festival In most contexts, the concept of good denotes the conduct that should be preferred when posed with a choice between possible actions. Good is generally considered to be the opposite of evil and is of interest in the study of ethics, morality, ph ...

. Following on from this, Roni Size and Reprazent returned to North America for the first time in seven years as one of the headliners at the 2009

Ultra Music Festival Ultra Music Festival (UMF) is an annual outdoor electronic music festival that takes place during March in Miami, Florida, United States. The festival was founded in 1999 by Russell Faibisch and Alex Omes. It was first held on Miami Beach, ...

in Miami. They then went on to perform at Coachella,Evelyn McDonnell:
Coachella: Roni Size and Reprazent bring back their beat
'

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

Music Blog, 16 April 2009 appearing as the final act of the festival. In September 2009, Roni Size and Reprazent played a gig with an orchestra and choir to mark the re-opening of

’s

Colston Hall Bristol Beacon, previously known as Colston Hall, is a concert hall and Grade II listed building on Colston Street, Bristol, England. It is owned by Bristol City Council. Since 2011, management of the hall has been the direct responsibility of ...

, collaborating with the BBC’s Nature's Great Events composer,

William Goodchild William Goodchild (born 3 April 1964) is a composer, orchestrator and conductor who produces music for film, television and the concert hall. Biography Born in Northampton, England to an Australian-born father, the late Ronald Goodchild, (fo ...

. In addition to older material, the band played material from a forthcoming Reprazent album.

Personal life

Williams is an avid

Bristol Rovers Bristol Rovers Football Club are a professional football club in Bristol, England. They compete in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. They play home matches at the Memorial Stadium in Horfield, they have been ...

fan and turned out for them in the charity match vs rivals

Bristol City Bristol City Football Club is a professional football club based in Bristol, England, which compete in the , the second tier of English football. They have played their home games at Ashton Gate since moving from St John's Lane in 1904. The ...

on May

Bank Holiday A bank holiday is a national public holiday in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland and the Crown Dependencies. The term refers to all public holidays in the United Kingdom, be they set out in statute, declared by royal proclamation or h ...

Monday, 2013.

Musical style

Much acclaim has centred on Williams's melding of the propulsive

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 ''ja� ...

beats accompanied by live drums and

double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...

. The group ''Roni Size & Reprazent's'' drum and bass is equally blended from hip hop,

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 mi ...

soul In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being". Etymology The Modern English noun '' soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest att ...

and

house A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air cond ...

Discography

Studio albums

*'' Touching Down'' (2002) *'' Return to V'' (2004) *''Take Kontrol'' (2014)

Collaborative albums

*'' New Forms'' (1997) with Roni Size & Reprazent *''

Ultra-Obscene ''Ultra-Obscene'' is the debut studio album by Breakbeat Era, a collaborative project consisting of Roni Size, DJ Die, and Leonie Laws. It was originally released on XL Recordings in 1999. It peaked at number 31 on the UK Albums Chart. Critical ...

'' (1999) with

*''

In the Møde ''In the Møde'' is the second studio album by English drum and bass group Roni Size & Reprazent, released on 9 October 2000 on the Talkin' Loud label. The follow-up to the group's 1997 Mercury Music Prize-winning album ''New Forms'', ''In the M� ...

'' (2000) with Roni Size & Reprazent *'' New Forms²'' (2008) with Roni Size & Reprazent *''Past & Present'' (2016) with Krust

Singles and EPs

*"Witchcraft" (1994) featuring Krust *"Fashion" (1995) *"Square Off" (1996) *"Snapshot" (1999) *"26 Bass" (1999) *"Sound Advice" (2002) *"Playtime" (2002) *"Freshen up the Budgie" (2003) *"Snapshot 3" (2003) *"Out of Breath" (2004) *"No More" (featuring

Beverley Knight Beverley Knight (born Beverley Anne Smith, 22 March 1973) is an English recording artist and musical theatre actress. She released her first album, '' The B-Funk'', in 1995. Heavily influenced by American soul music icons such as Sam Cooke and ...

& Dynamite MC) (2005) *"Touching Down, Vol. 2" (2005) *"Friends" (2006) *"Kops & Robbers" (2009) *"Out of Order" (2010) *"Size Matters" (2014) *”Edition 1 (Vintage)” (2021)

Compilations and DJ mixes

*''Music Box'' (1993) *''Through the Eyes'' (2000)

References

External links

* *
Roni Size
interview on ilikemusic.com, 2008
Roni Size
interview on The Student Pocket Guide
Roni Size
interview with

BBC Bristol The BBC campus, Broadcasting House Bristol, is located on Whiteladies Road, Bristol. The first building to be occupied was 21/23 Whiteladies Road, which was built in 1852 and is a Grade II listed building, with four radio studios. It was formal ...

Roni Size
interview with Remixmag {{DEFAULTSORT:Size, Roni 1969 births Living people English electronic musicians English people of Jamaican descent English record producers Breakbeat musicians English drum and bass musicians Black British DJs English DJs Musicians from Bristol Electronic dance music DJs