During the 1980s and early 90s, collecting records was a lifestyle. From an early age I fell in love with music and records. A large part if this is attributed to hip hop and b-boy culture which embraced turntables and sampling rare records to create beats. During this time all DJing was done on vinyl in a creative way. Rare records were highly valued and sort after, we also had something amazing that we don’t have now, which is local record shops. Growing up in Hornsey, North London, we didn’t have to go to the West End to buy records. The first record shop I brought my first record from was Sunshine Records in Turnpike Lane. It was run by a guy called H, who had a small independent soul record shop selling mainly US imports. In these early years, I really started to fall in love with vinyl and every record was different. I used to be fascinated by the amount of interesting information that an album would have printed on it, from the spine to the inner sleeve and cover. I also like the fact that new records are sealed and you had to unseal them, which felt like opening a present on Christmas day. In those days, before digital music wasn’t even a concept, the only way we could actually DJ was to load up our record boxes with vinyl. I would carry boxes around of 70 to 100 records and go from club to club playing 1 hour sets in the West End. I have always had a personal connection to every record I’ve ever bought. There’s a story behind every piece of vinyl in my collection.

Through secondary school years, I started buying soul music and DJing became a full-time career path. I didn’t know at this stage it would be my first business, I was just buying as many records as I could afford with whatever pocket money and odd job money I could get my hands on. We all had week by week record shop buying routines. These patterns were influenced by iconic DJs who would often be behind the counter working at the shop. A normal week would start with Trevor ‘Madhatter’ Nelsons late night show on Kiss FM. I would listen to the show and hit the record shops and vinyl mail order companies the following morning which was mainly rare groove and funk at the time, carefully timing my visits to the days when new US imports would arrive as American Soul & Hip Hop was in it’s golden era. Many hours a week were spent in Music Power records on Green Lanes, Haringey. Behind the counter was Nick Power, H from Sunshine and the legendary Dean Savonne, entertaining buyers with new tunes as they received them. Saturday mornings, the spot was Groove Records on Wardour Street for all the latest electro and rap. Celebrity DJ’s would be on the decks in the store on Saturdays. Saturday night was all about Paul “Trouble” Anderson and other master mix radio shows. On would start at independent dealers in Camden market. Myself and friend, Pierre, would spend the morning sifting through 7” singles, looking for rare gems before heading to Dingwalls to hear Giles Peterson and Patrick Forge spinning the discs, and watch the jazz dancers take to the floor. In-between days were filled with Quaff Records in  Finsbury Park, Blue Monk in Turnpike Lane and later on Just for the Beat and Body ~Music in Tottenham, also Ronnie Herel’s Uptown records where I bought most of my RnB & Rap 12”’s and albums. Catch a Groove in Soho for soulful house & RnB and Black Market records for all things house also.

At the time, I was a member of the Soul II Soul sound system, led by Jazzie B MBE, who hosted the legedary Sunday night sessions at the Africa Centre in Covent Garden whilst also building the Soul II Soul brand at the Camden HQ. Being around the DJ’s & Promotors encouraged and heavily influenced my weekly buying routine. At the Camden HQ, records bought were played, listened to and approved of by the funky dreads, Daddy Harvey, HB, Jazzie Q and Jazzie B. Harvey would ask me to help with the sound, and my passion for equipment ownership was sparked. Sunday Nights were amazing and Trevor ‘Madhatters’ Nelson and Jazzie B became my musical godfathers. Alot of the music I bought back in the day was based around the selection these guys were playing in the clubs and had a massive influence on my music taste. There are so many other DJs who made me understand the importance of vinyl records and DJing rare grooves, boogie, funk and disco which became the core of my record collection. DJs, Des Parks and Norman Jay especially and also Nicky Holloway, Judge Jules, Pete Tong and Bobby and Steve who were all playing rare disco and boogie tunes, before turning to House. Rare groove champions like Mikey B from Funky Express sound system were highly influential in my musical journey and acceptance of street soul and ‘big tunes’. My collection was growing nicely, when Djing, I often bought two copies of each record in order to remix live in clubs and parties, this is something I would benefit from later. We were doing house parties all over london every weekend. There were lots of people involved, but Elliot, Dave, Pierre, Gary, Martin, Mark, Derek and Ricky were with me in the shops buying records, Djing & organising parties; for me it was a full time commitment.

After college I had an opportunity to work in Washington DC, USA, for a small independent record label called Hitmaker Records . They had some really nice artists on their roster and were just coming out the ‘Go Go’ era. The label invited me to come to Washington to help set up distribution deals and artist visits in the UK. The owner of the record label, Norma, invited me to her house to stay with them for a few days and when I asked where she lived, to my amazement she said ‘Rock Creek Park’, the title of one of my favourite songs by the Blackbyrds. Norma gave me so many records, significantly contributing to my collection. Most of my Roy Ayers albums came from her, as well as signed copies of James Brown and Lonnie Liston Smith albums that I will never part with. During this time in the States it was the first time I found a copy of  Donald Byrd’s ‘Places and Spaces’ album, which was sort after back home. At the end of the trip I came home with more than 500 records. It was the first time I had to go through through ‘goods to declare’ at an airport. Later, I returned to New York at a time of recession in the states and black music collectors and families were selling their vinyl to second hand dealers like the Record and Tape Exchange shops. This was well documented and discussed in the UK, but my trips to New York and Washington to buy records, allowed me to witness this first hand. I spent a lot of time on that trip in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan, searching for rare collectible soul which couldn’t be found in the UK. Fathers Children, Benny Golson, Gary Bartz, Don Blackman, the Jones Girls, Easter Phillips, Jean Carn, I was in Rare Soul Heaven. I meet a DJ out there called DJ Chico, who used to have a pop up record store in Time’s Square where I first found a copy of James Brown’s ‘Funky Drummer’ 7” on the original King Label. I bought so many records from him. There was a legendary record shop called Winley Records in Harlem. The shop had been closed down, but had been drawn into hip hop folk law because of a bootleg album that the owner, Paul Winley, released called Super Disco Breaks. I went to the store just to see it and luckily bumped into Paul Winley’s daughter Tanya, who was an underground rapper. She let me into the Winley archives in the basement of the store which was still full of records and I walked away with around 100 copies of Super Disco Breaks to take back to the UK and distribute through my network. This trip had another significant customs bill when I got home.

In 1989, the summer of love, I developed a real love for House Music. I would spend a lot of time on Fridays and Saturdays at Black Market Records in Soho and at Music Power. I had a weekly residency on Sunday nights at a club in Hatfield where we were playing hardcore and happy acid house.

Over the years, I was lucky enough to inherit lots of personal record collections which includes my Mums Dub & Reggae collection. She also had lots of rare white labels and albums after working for Caroline Records (part of Virgin Records) which I managed to get my hands on. Collecting Vinyl Records allows you go through various styles & genres, which I went through for many years. At times, I would become obsessed with 7 inch records, to the extent that I would want to play a whole DJ set from just 7 inches. In the 90s, I was buying every rap album I could get my hands on. Tupac, Snoop Dog, B.I.G, Wu-Tang, I also have a large selection of classic artist albums from the 60s and I made an effort to collect and buy most of the Beatles albums, and really enjoyed buying movie soundtracks on vinyl as well. In those days you could buy a whole album just for one track, then discover the album was full of gems.

With all of this musical energy I started my first business which was a DJ agency called Sounds Good to Me. I had 10 amazing DJs and we specialised in corporate event DJing. We were working for event organisers and early party planners in an involving events industry which eventually lead me into a love for event production and technical equipment. We had contracts at the American Embassy and other Embassies in London, I was a BBC contractor as a DJ for many years and we worked at London’s top hotels as mobile DJ’s with equipment packages. We played for celebrities like Graham Norton, Father Ted, Lenny Henry, The Eastenders cast. Every year we would do the Top of the Pops awards after party, I also and I travelled across Europe - DJing at private parties and weddings for various agents and clients. I have to pay tribute to Elliot, a friend who was often by my side behind the decks as he introduced me to mixing and DJing in the early years.

I set up Rockit Event Production in 2007 after working for years in the events industry. I started small and have grown the business into an recognised, reliable AV, Sound & Lighting Hire and Technical event production company. Some of our clients include H&M, Somerset House, PlayStation, Nike, Ralph Lauren, Spotify, Google and Tommy Hilfiger to name just afew. Rockit was 15 years old in 2022 and my office has a backdrop of vinyl which brings a smile to my face everyday. I often dig out records that have cherished memories and play them in the office.

During the pandemic I decided to sell my doubles and a selection of records that I felt I could part with, I set up a record store on Discogs called Groove Gem Records and finally became a seller which was surprisingly enjoyable. There is something special about shipping records to Japan, Europe and across the UK, that gives me great satisfaction. Selling your music to other people that value your records is great, but it’s also hard sometimes to part with a record that has a lot of history and memories.

Trevor Nelson once said during a radio show on Kiss, words that have stay embedded within me - “Believe in yourself, believe in the music, and the music will believe in you. Hearing is believing”. Words that I will never forget.…..

After the pandemic Serato Studio was a piece of software I would play around with along with Ableton, Maschine and many other platforms. As Stems become popular and available to the masses, everything I had ever wanted to do while asking back in the day suddenly became possible. I got my head into the world of Serato Studio and started remixing, I posted my first YouTube clip in October 2023, so this Remix journey is fairly new. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to mix from masters rather then relying on stems. But for now I’m just having fun and enjoying looking for perfect blends of new and old music that signifies many years of filling dancefloors with classic boogie tunes, rare groove, disco, funk and soul riffs mixed with modern and classic tunes…