MarkDwayne Barracuda

Meet Mark Dwayne, singer, magazine founder and editor, radio personality, and event promoter, quite simply the hardest working man in Birmingham, England. Growing up in the second city of the UK, Mark had a passion for singing and dreamt of making it big in the music industry. Artist coming from Birmingham's larger brother city of London are more easily found and recognized, so as a teenager trying to get oneself discovered in "Brum" town is a daunting task. Mark decided he was going to reach his goal by any means necessary, which meant doing a little bit of hustling the legitimate way on the side.



To help himself out and other artist like him in the West Midlands area of the UK, Mark decided to make a free one page supplementary paper that was included inside the local Community Enterprise newspaper. The supplement paper “Street Cred” would showcase up-in-coming artist who had potential for being something more. As the supplement became more popular it had outgrown its space in the local paper and became a stand alone 20 page black-in-white magazine. Eventually it wasn’t long before it became what it is seen as now, a 100 page glossy internationally known magazine. Being a black owned property also helped to break some racial barriers in media in the local area as well. Street Cred magazine is now the UK’s number 1 entertainment and lifestyle magazine. 2008 celebrated 10 years since the magazine began as a stand alone publication.



Street Cred magazine has come a long way since its humble beginnings and so has the music of Mark Dwayne. In 2001 Mark achieved record of the week status twice with two of his earlier productions “Splendid” and “Shake It Up” on the Dreem Team show on BBC Radio 1. The response for Mark's music as an independent artist was really big and got the attention of Trouble TV where they did a documentary on his life in music. Other media support came from Carlton, Evening Mail, Touch, Pride Magazine, Channel 4 and New Nation newspaper.



As it was hard to find a production/distribution label to release his project album, Mark thought the best move would be to start his own record label. So began the birth of Street-Cred UK Records in 2004. The first official release from the label was Mark’s debut solo album “The Hustler” that same year. It was a phenomenal underground success which had distribution support from HMV. The first single “Barbershops” had an iTunes release and the video was aired on Just Fabulous, MTV, Flux, and Channel U. Album tracks “Show Me love”, “Barbershops” and “Chocolate” was play listed on Choice Galaxy and BBC 1xtra.



In 2005 Mark staged his debut album release celebration party. In 2006 Mark Dwayne's music went international as he took his music to America and performed in Jacksonville and Miami, Florida which was a major success. Also in the same year he made his first contacts with DJ Antomattei of Tokyo who would introduce his music to Japan. The two later went on to establish a strong personal friendship and business relationship which continues today.



After writing, arranging, and producing a new track "In Love Again" in 2007, Mark was approached by DJ Sparks who would remix the song to a new subgenre of UK garage music called "bassline". The song was signed to MI RAW, making it Dwayne's first official record deal.



After successfully remaining in the media spotlight, Mark Dwayne was approached by the Aston Villa radio station ASTON 89.1 FM to be the face of the "Kick Racism Out of Football" campaign in 2007, this later led to him being a radio presenter on ASTON FM with his very own radio program. The late night dance music radio show "Street Cred Live" began airing on ASTON FM in December 2007 and comes on seven days a week in the 9PM to 2AM timeframe. The show is a success with the station reaching approximately 140,000 listeners a day. "Our show is the most cutting edge nite time radio show in the Midlands." The show held its 1 year anniversary party on January 10, 2009 at the Custard Factory in Birmingham.







In February 2008, "Funkaliscious" a new monthly resident club event sponsored by Street Cred magazine was made. It is held on the last Friday of every month at club Barracuda located in Birmingham's China Town. The host for the show is Mark Dwayne who sometimes would perform at the events.







After a successful run in many different fields in business and media, Mark Dwayne is looking to get back to his passion of singing in 2009 beginning work on a sophmore follow up album to The Hustler. January 2009 seen the release of his single "In Love Again" remixed by DJ Q on Ministry of Sound's compilation CD "The Sound of Bassline 2".







By Marc Antomattei