Background

Around the late 80's Dean was heavily into rap music like Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions and Ice Cube which was a result of watching far too much MTV, but his first encounter with rave music was from a mates older sister listening to the "Deep Heat" albums throughout '89-'90, at the time he was too young to know about the actual rave scene itself.

It wasn't until about the end of the summer '91 that a driver who worked for his Dad heard him playing a Deep Heat album, and lent him a Carl Cox tape and basically explained about raves, from then on Dean was hooked.

DJ Twista's first rave was when he was 16yrs old - Ravelation NYE '95-'96 at Wembley Arena and pretty much straight after that he became a weekly Labrynth regular as well as attending raves like Helter Skelter, Slammin Vinyl, Dreamscape, United Dance and Hardcore Heaven to name a few.

Graphic Design

Dean had always loved the airbrush artwork on the early flyers.. Dreamscapes, Helter Skelters, Slammin Vinyls etc, pretty much anything done by artists Pez or Junior Tomlin.

After graduating art college in mid 1997 and almost instantly obtained a position with a design company based in South London where he was trained in various essential design and printing skills. Very quickly Dean built a strong reputation for being able to design high quality flyers for dance music events as he was so in tuned to each style of music he designed for.

Over the past decade Dean has created artwork for some of the UK's major promotions, festivals and record labels...

Accelerated Culture, Awol, Back 2 Basics, Best of British, Breakin Science, Desire, DJ Ez, Digital Circus, Fantazia, Funkin You, Fusion, Garage Nation, Global Gathering, Hardcore Til I Die, Helter Skelter, Kiss 100, Liberty, Metal Headz, Moondance, One Love, One Nation, Pure Old Skool, Pure Silk, Raindance, Raverbaby, Renegade Hardware, Sidewinder, Sun City, Sundissential, Tasty, Trouble On Vinyl, Uproar, Vibealite plus many more.

DJing

DJ Twista's DJ styles are very versatile ranging from the roots of house music through to all sounds that involve a breakbeat and bass, playing all the elements from the original underground dance music scene; from his 1st love old skool hardcore '90 - '96 and nu skool rave / breaks to classic piano house, jungle and upfront drum & bass.

From 1997 DJ Twista worked his way through the ever popular London pirate radio scene, playing on various stations...from South London’s legendary Upfront 99.3fm & North London's Passion 91.8fm (both under the house & garage alias Mr Willson), then onto original old skool station Eruption 101.3fm and currently holding a massive 10 prime time Old Skool / D&B shows per month on London's leading Origin 95.2Fm & Essex's number 1 station; Charge 90.8FM. Not forgetting regular guest shows on Billy Daniel Bunter's Love Muzik show on Ministry of Sound radio.

DJ Twista has played all over the UK and Europe to crowds as large as 4600 people, for some of the scenes longest standing events such as Awol, Desire, Fantazia, Fusion, Moondance, One Nation, Raindance, and has played at some of the UK's largest venues: Alexandra Palace (Awol / Universal Sounds), Braehead arena, Scotland (Fantazia), Brixton Academy (One Nation), Cardiff Academy Ice Arena (Sun City), Digital Circus festival big top tent and at officially the largest hardcore event of 2005 Uproar Colossus @ Nottingham Ice Arena.

He is currently holding 2 residencies in the UK :

• Hardcore Til I Die / Old Skool Til I Die - old skool hardcore (held for 3 years)
• Tasty / Love Muzik - old skool house / hardcore & club classics (held for 2 years)

Tiwsta also has regular sets at events up and down the country such at Beyond Reality, Freedom 2 Dance, Fusion, Moondance, Random Concept, Raverbaby, Rave Utopia and Uproar plus many more.

To date, the highlight of his Djing career was playing a 1 1/2 hour set (11pm - 12.30am), seeing in the new year 2005 / 2006 in the main arena of Moondance at the SE one in London, with a sold out full capacity crowd of 3500.

His worst DJ moment was at Back 2 92 in London 2005, whilst on the decks, a dancer on the stage done a backflip too close to the decks and flipped over into the dj stand sending everything flying.

Production

DJ Twista has been producing for just over 3 years, and in the past 16 months has been supporting Nu Skool Rave (140 - 145bpm breakbeat music incorporating vocals, pianos & modern producing techniques). He has had success with a hand full of tracks which have had heavy support from DJ's like Slipmatt, SY, Billy Daniel Bunter, Ratpack, Ellis Dee & DJ's within the pirate / internet radio circuit.

At the end of 2006 DJ Twista also remixed 2 original old skool tracks for the brand new Helter Skelter meets Raindance : Hardcore 2007 Album.

Discography

Sy-Kick - Nasty (DJ Twista Remix) - Helter Skelter meets Raindance : Hardcore 2007 Album
Manix - Feel Real Good (DJ Twista Remix) - Helter Skelter meets Raindance : Hardcore 2007 Album
Story Teller - Sharkfin Records 004 (early 2007)
Get Hard - Junki Munki Records 001 (early 2007)

www.dnb4essex.co.uk

As well as a full design schedule and busy DJ diary, DJ Twista also is one of 3 founding members of the popular Drum & Bass music site www.dnb4essex.co.uk. In its 2nd year of running the site boasts over 1000 members worldwide, featuring information, mixes, forums, pod casts from the Drum & Bass scene in Essex and the rest of the UK. All done simply for the love of the music.

www.djtwista.co.uk