Derrick

I started playing at the tender young of age six years old, firstly by picking up a pair of mums hangers and banging on the floor furiously to beat i heard on the radio!!!! Funny 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 Kenrick Rowe playing in band a reggae band and of course he showed me some rudiments and basic sticking work, and it all came flooding back to me the the urge to play again, so i managed to find myself 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 lent 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 and the band was calld Pure and Simple 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 Dalston east London earning �9 a day working on a Saturday morning from 7am 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 a Slingerland 1960's kit sounded great i loved it. After 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 to 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 played a couple of gigs with, and this band was Urban Species a rap outfit from north
London and they were fantastic especially live. 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, doing japan at christmas was a great laugh!!!!!
In 1993 I met a a friend of a friend who was top producer and his sister was a singer, 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 drummer and would i like to audition for them. So i did my two long auditions and the rest lovely people is history!!!!!!!!!!!!
So seven albums later i am still with Jamiroquai and loving every minute of it, i am also writing producing and remixing my own material also. Together with recording with some great producers and writers its always joy to be doing what i do.
I have been working with new young singer called Blaze rock pop tracks very different from what i do but still always a challenge, also recorded a with Steve Booker producer songwriter for Duffy/Alesha Dixon/Alexander Burke. Its great to be doing this new things with new people as i can always bring new ideas to the Jamiroquai camp!!!!!!
I would ike to take the time to thank all the lovely fans for their love and support and comments good or bad for the band over the years and i could not be here without all of that, i hope you continue to enjoy the music i give to you all.
Massive love and respect
Dxxx



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