I started playing at the tender young of age six years old, firstly by picking up two of my mothers hangers and banging on the floor furuiously to beat i heard on the radio!!!! Funnyly enough at that age i knew that drumming was the thing i really wanted to do. Anyway i would come in from school and keep playing away on the floor as if there was the biggest kit around me. But of course that was all in my head.
Anyway playing was not consistant i can assure you, until i met a friend of mine playing at in band a reggae band of course, and it all came flooding back to me the the urge to play again, so i managed to find myelf a couple of local gigs in my area, and but of course at the older age of 10 i could not afford my my own drums and my mum was not having any of it!!!! But my friends took pity on me and leant me there kit, and this carried on for a few years i hired kits with the help of my mum of course and stuff.
At 14 i joined my friends band her name was Toyin a very talented singer who i went to school with and she was already working with top reggae artists that i only wished i could work with.
At 16 i got my own job at marks and spencers in east london earning £9 a day working on a saturday morning from 7 till 1pm. Then with the help of my dad and a great saving scheme we managed to get together £400 to get my first drum kit Slingerland 1960's kit sounded great i loved it. Ater i did my extra hours at M&S i would come home and
practice for hours on end actually roughly about 4 hours a day as that is when my mum came home from work and forced me t stop drumming.
I also joined a jazz funk outfit called Tranzeyance we did a couple of gigs but we always rehearsed every tuesday without fail down in shorditch those were the days and i loved those days.
Eventually i joined another band called Candyland still working at marks and spencers but by now i was travelling to marble arch and starting at 6am and finishing at 1pm so i could come home and practice. I was with them for a few years and we got signed by Fiction Records for a few years released an album and then dropped but we had a fantastic run and we did some dam good touring!!!!!!!!
After getting over the trauma of being dropped, i kept in contact with a friend of mine who worked at emi publishing, and i gave him my number and just asked him to keep an eye out for me and who needed a drummer. Eventually he got back to me and told about a band called Freaky Realistic a three piece outfit who were like a pop rap outfit, we did a few tv's and showcases which ended up doing ok for them, but still i was not fully satisfied.
Eventually i got a call from an old friend of mine who i plaed a couple of gigs with, and this band was Urban Species a rap outfit from north london and they were fantastic especially llive. They toured for long time and it was such a great experience for me. All the guys were fantastic and one young lady of course, we toured japan and europe extensively especially doing japan at christmas!!!!!!!
In 1993 I met a a friend of a friend who was top producer and his sister was a singer, but so we exchanged numbers and we said we would talk. Two days later he rang me to say that a band called jamiroquai who i had never heard of at the time. were looking for a druimmer and would i like to audition for them. So i did my two long auditions and the rest lovely people is history!!!!!!!!!!!!
I would also like to add that the song on my space is courtesy of a production company called Freak n See, the young lady singing is Sophie delila the track is called back together my favourite track off the album whick i s entitiled All Yours. I am working her and jimmy her working partner at the minute. So you will get a chance to hear those also.
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Hello Derrick!! Can't seem to get enough of listening to Montreux 2003, I'm overloading my DVD-hahaha......U must record "Shoot The Moon".....that would be a Beautiful thing ^_^ Have a summer vibing day!!!! Peace....ANNA
hey derrick! how are you man? i saw the last gig at rock in rio madrid (sadly on tv, cause i had to work that day) but it was amazing, perfect as always! now i am going to do a little trip around turkey and syria...bt gonna see you in the sziget festival in budapest!!!! hope to catch ya there! see you. iñaki
Hey Derrick! How r you doing? I saw you at Rock in Rio past weekend, what an amazing concert! I wish it could be longer! What happened with the mic on Love Foolosophy?? Take care and have a good tour!
i'm here to write u a big big THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for all u've done to make that day so special for me! your big heart always breaks our breath! you rock my dear!! LOTS OF LOVE Mica XXX
Hi Derrick, I am just stopping through to show some love and respect and wish you a safe trip this weekend. All the best to you on your many upcoming gigs, I wish I could be there in person to here all the good vibrations you will be giving to the crowds:)
I visited Poland on your concert and can say what all was very perfectly, except for that I wished to be nearer... I like very much update version The Return of the Space Cowboy=)and SDISJ with Alright))) Thank you for your music!!!Cheers!!! :D
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