D-BOY

D-boy first began his career in music at a young age playing the drums for his school band. He then built a small studio in his loft with an Atari computer where be began to experiment with new ideas musically. Already a huge fan of Soul and New Jack Swing, D-boy decided to take his career seriously and moved up North to Newcastle to study sound production at The John Marley Centre. After a few years working within the corporate world and achieving another degree in Marketing, the void of music in his life was prominent. He quit his progress for corporate bloom and began developing a new singer called Sharifa Shi, as well as producing for renowned female MC Estelle. Then, along with Shabz (Music Kidz/So Solid) and Sef (The Reelists) they got their first development act signed to Sony, a young writer called Bruce Boniface. Bruce has since moved to LA where he recently penned ‘Lie About Us’ for Avant featuring Nicole from the Pussycat Dolls and Estelle is now signed to John Legend’s new label imprint.
D-boy then formed a song-writing unit called Synergetic with Sharifa Shi and Chris ‘Marz’ Marsac. In 2005 they won ‘Overall Best Song’ with ‘Reap what you Sow’ for the British Academy of Songwriters and Composers (in connection with Music Week), where they were asked to attend the prestigious Ivor Novello Awards as winning representatives. Then in 2006, they were awarded second place with their song ‘Heartbreaker’, in conjunction with Apple.com and the Songwriters Academy



Late in 2005, he teamed up with UK MC Baby Blue and produced ‘Come Closer (Dheere Dheere)’, a Hindi sampled track with a mid tempo, hip hop feel which became a massive underground Asian hip hop smash including a ‘next big track’ feature in NME. This lead to a university tour with the BBC Asian Network and he eventually landed a record deal with VIP Urban. This is when PLAYBACK was born, a concept devised by two close friends. With one playback mic and many voices (the playback mic was a term used to describe the mic used by original playback singers from early bollywood cinema). For the Playback project, D-boy has managed to pull in both signed and unsigned acts featuring artists such as Punjabi Maestro Des-E (formally of the Mentor Kolectiv), R&B crooner Sef, Ranjit Mani from India, Swiss, Sharifa Shi, A G Dolla, plus many more talented show stoppers. He also travelled to Delhi in India to record fresh vocals and live instruments. With a new video for his first single on VIP Urban, ‘Nach Ke (To Dance)’ with UK pioneer Swiss featuring V Dble E, this is bound to turn on new frequencies for UK/Asian music. Shot in Hollywood, this bollywood throwback video captures the energy and the heat that comes with the bhangra infused hip hop single.