RADIO SHOWS
Profile
Intro
DJ Twista (Dean Willson) has been involved in the underground dance music scene for just over a decade, working as a graphic designer, DJ and producer amongst some of the biggest promotions & artists spanning a wide variety of rave music.
Background
Growing up in North West London through the 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. 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, lent him a Carl Cox tape and basically explained about raves, from then on Dean was hooked.
His 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 legendary raves like Helter Skelter, Slammin Vinyl, Dreamscape, United Dance and Hardcore Heaven to name a few.
Graphic Design
Over the past 11 years Dean has established himself as one of the UK's leading graphic designers within the dance music industry. Originally inspired by the early airbrush works of Pez and Junior Tomlin Dean has built a strong reputation for being able to design high quality artwork for dance music events as he was so in tuned to each style of music he designed for.
Dean has worked for some of the UK’s major promotions, festivals and record labels and is responsible for the look of many leading brands in todays rave scene. His work has been used not only in the UK but in Germany, Spain, Cyprus, Greece, Korfu and the USA.
His client list has included: Accelerated Culture, Awol, Back 2 Basics, Best of British, Breakin Science, Coloursfest, Desire, DJ Ez, Digital Circus, Fantazia, Fantasylands, Funkin You, Fusion, Garage Nation, Global Energy, 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
After learning to mix throughout the mid 90's, DJ Twista worked his way through the ever popular London pirate radio scene, playing on various stations...from South Londons 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 8 prime time Old Skool / D&B shows per month on London’s leading Origin 95.1Fm & Essex’s number 1 station; Charge 90.8FM.
His styles are very versatile ranging from the from Upfront Drum & Bass and Classic Jungle to Rave Breaks & Old Skool.
DJ Twista has always had a good sense of playing the right tunes at the right time, keeping the crowd on their toes and making his sets as exciting as possible which has gained him no less than 8 UK residencies with events : Hardcore Til I die, Moondance, Uproar, Tasty, Fusion, Destiny, Rave Utopia & The Vinyl Touch.
DJing has taking him all over the UK and Europe playing to crowds as large as 4600 people for some of the scenes longest standing events such as Awol, Desire, Fantazia, Fusion, Helter Skelter, Moondance, One Nation and Raindance to name a few.
Highlights of his career have been to play the midnight set in the main arena of Seone (London) at Moondance NYE 05 - 06 to a sold out crowd alongside the legendary MC MC. Last new years eve (07-08) Twista was asked back to play the 1st hour of the new year at Moondance alongside DJ Squirrel and MC MC.
Residencies
Hardcore Til I Die / Old Skool Til I Die - old skool hardcore & rave breaks
Moondance - old skool hardcore & rave breaks
Tasty / Love Muzik - old skool house / hardcore & club classics
Uproar - old skool hardcore & rave breaks
Fusion - old skool hardcore & rave breaks
Destiny - Drum & Bass
Rave Utopia- old skool jungle & Drum & Bass
The Vinyl Touch - old skool hardcore / jungle
Previous 5 year Residency with Pure Old Skool (2001 - 2006)
and also has regular sets at events up and down the country such as;
Beyond Reality
Fantazia
Innovation
Random Concept
Raverbaby
plus many more.
Production
DJ Twista has been producing for just over 3 years, supporting Drum & Bass + Rave Breaks (140 - 145bpm breakbeat music incorporating vocals, pianos & modern producing techniques).
He has established his sound as fast paced, bouncy rave music which has had heavy support from DJ’s like Slipmatt, SY, Billy Daniel Bunter, Ratpack, Ellis Dee, Kiss 100's Jay Cunning & many DJ’s within the pirate / internet radio circuit.
Since 2006 Dj Twista has remixed some of the old skool scenes biggest anthems as well as producing his own fresh material and had many of his tracks released on various albums including the Helter Skelter album series (Ministry of Sound), No.1 Old Skool & Rave Breaks Album (Deca Dance) and the Moondance Rave Anthems Album (CYFI media) which have jointly sold well over half a million copies worldwide.
At present Twista is hard at work in the studio so watch out for loads of new material throughout 2008, also watch out for drum & bass productions during the Summer.
Watch out for Future Rave Anthems - Rave Breaks vs Old Skool The Album mixed by DJ Twista Out end of Summer 2008.
http://www.canyoufeelitmedia.com
Can You Feel It Media is a brand new company set up by Daniel Light (Billy Daniel Bunter) & Matthew Nelson (Slipmatt). Both partners have over 40 years of unparalleled success between them within the dance music industry.
Can You Feel It Media is boldly heading in to an exciting new era of the next generation wave of music companies. Embracing the ever changing rules, that have left so many independents and majors by the wayside.
The company is excited about the future of music, and our close working relationship with major forces such as Ministry Of Sound and I Tunes guarantees maximum exposure for so many of our artists, releases and concepts.
As Head of A&R for Breaks & Drum & Bass as well as of course Head of Design, Dean (Dj Twista) has secured a number of releases with D&B labels such as Low Down deep, Nam Musik, Renegade Hardware and Grid recordings. Not to mention his own Rave breaks compilation "Future Rave Anthems" due the end of Summer 2008.
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 3rd year of running the site boasts over 4000 members worldwide, re-launched under a new face - www.dnbstations.co.uk - a new site that covers a comprehensive list of dnbstations from around the world all listenable direct from the site through its unique multiple radio station media player