Jaydan

Jaydan Aka Jamie Cope hails from Leicester and has been into drum & bass ever since discovering it through his older brothers love of the music. From his early teens he was listening to rave music through his brother and in his friends bedrooms and started attending various under 18s raves around Leicester.



As the music started to evolve into the jungle/drum & bass sound in the early 90’s he became hooked and at the age of 16 attended his first big rave namely Dance Planet at the legendary Sanctuary in Milton Keynes. He continued to attend nights all over the UK such as Helter Skelter, pandemonium, Dreamscape, Total Kaos & Pleasuredome to name a few and seeing DJs like LTJ Bukem , Grooverider, Hype, Fabio and Jumping Jack Frost he knew that he wanted to be a DJ. It was at that time he met a group of likeminded people through another friend he had made recently, a local DJ by the name of DJ Detro (Marc). It was one of the new group of friends DJ Skitzo (Justin) who set Jaydan on his way by teaching him how to mix. Jaydan recalls how inspirational the music was to him around those years and one of the most inspirational producers of that time to him was Omni Trio. “I loved the uplifting vibes of the music in the tunes and then comes the dirty amen breaks and heavy sub bass hits it was superb and timeless”.



Having been learning to mix on friend’s decks and having played at a couple of house party’s an opportunity came up for Jaydan to play at a Formation Records night back to back with Dj Detro at the Underground in Leicester. He recalls “It was a nerve racking experience because we were performing with the likes of Darren J, SS, Dj Ron, L Double, General Levy and Warren G”. It went really well though and was a first taste of playing to a big crowd and they both knew they wanted more. Over the next couple of years and having dabbled in happy hardcore under the alias Dj Insane, Jaydan knew that it was Drum & bass that was he truly enjoyed playing but the scene had gone a little too techy for him, needing to satisfy his craving for Amen Breaks he turned his attention to the LTJ Bukem / Logical Progression movement. Having enjoyed attending the Progression Sessions nights around the UK, listening to and playing the intelligent style of drum & Bass it was a natural progression into the now emerging liquid funk side of things.



It was at this point that he and Dj Detro decided that as they had played back 2 back many times in the past and shared records due to having the same taste in music and had also become good friends they may have more success if they joined up under 1 name enabling twice the networking ability. Jaydans Brother Tony then suggested the name Disfunktion and they agreed that was the name they would use for the venture. As the djing and bookings continued to grow along with the monthly night Genetic they had set up with another good friend Sam, Jaydan started to attend studio sessions with his brother and really liked the creativity behind writing and Producing Drum & Bass. Feeling a natural urge to unleash the ideas he had in his head he knew that this was also something he passionately wanted to pursue but was struggling to build himself a studio due to everything being hardware based and very expensive.



It was shortly after this when he met Dj Zen after his move to Leicester to join Formation Records and with guidance started to buy and build his own software based Studio mainly funded from driving Twisted Individual to some of his many gigs. From then on this is where he would spend all of his spare time learning the craft. With the fast accelerating jump up scene and spending more time around Twisted & Zen he was hearing tracks that blew him away and seeing what this energetic music was doing to the dance floors he knew this was the style he wanted to work towards. The following Year he met up with Generation dub when they moved to Leicester also to join Formation Records and seeing his Potential they signed him to their own new imprint Propaganda Recordings. From Then on and being a solo producer he needed to have a solo artist name and having been called Jaydan previous to Disfunktion he decided to roll with that. Due to all the hard work he and Marc had put in over the years it was decided that Marc would continue to be known as Disfunktion.



Fast forward to 2007 and having had had a steady stream of releases on Propaganda and Blueprint as well as doing well received remixes for the likes of Aphrodite, DBO General and Swann-e to name a few, Jaydan felt he was now an established enough name to launch his own record label which was something he had been thinking about for a long time. After weeks of toying with ideas for names he settled on Smokin’ Riddims and with help from his brother Tony the logo and brand was created. The label has accelerated in notoriety far quicker than he could had ever imagined with many of the current releases to date charting in the Radio One Top 10 Drum & Bass Chart as high as number 4. Wanting to start building a camp of artists and having received some unsigned tracks he discovered the talents of DJ Origin, Shifta & Dr Dub and seeing their potential signed them to the label. Since then there have been even more additions to the label in the form of Steppa & Kitcha and also USA outfit Fineprint. With the camp starting to look solid and excellent material starting to roll in from the artists the label continues to go from strength to strength and has a very bright future constantly building in momentum with every release.



2009 has undoubtedly been the biggest year in Jaydan’s 6 year production career with him achieving many of his own personal goals. Having previously featured on the mighty Ganja Records and Ganja-Tek with collaborations made with Adam (Original Sin) from G Dub a couple of years back, 2009 sees the Solo Debut EP from Jaydan on Ganja Records titled “The Driller Killer EP”. All 4 tracks have received massive support from DJ Hype on Kiss FM, Grooverider & Fabio on BBC Radio 1 and Crissy Criss on BBC1xtra along with being played by all the top DJ’s in the industry.



Jaydan has been Djing for 15 years now and describes himself as a straight up party DJ although he plays and appreciates music from right across the spectrum of Drum & Bass. Along with regular appearances that stretch the length and breadth of the UK, he has also performed in a string of country’s including Belgium, Amsterdam, Poland, Toronto, Paris, Vienna, Portugal, Spain & Germany regularly returning to perform again.



Having been signed to Innovation Artist Management Jaydan now keeps company with some of the biggest drum and bass artists in the world and regularly performs at the industries prestige events, which was another of his personal goals realized. With an increasingly busying Dj schedule including worldwide appearances, a thriving record label and an ever increasing discography on some of the most respected labels in the business Jaydan is defiantly making people take notice.



Get a scroller at frogcodes.com!