TONI BLACKBEARD

Toni Blackbeard (The Fixer) has been cutting his craft in the music biz since the early 90’s. Starting has a backline music tech Toni traveled around America & Europe studying the art of being a band roadie for Birmingham based group L.Kage. After a brief spell he then landed himself at Drama school in London. Hot trotting down to the smoke it was not long before Toni gave up is thespian training for an aspiring career in the music industry.Getting his foot in the door with independent record label Cherry Red Records he started is apprenticeship running punk back catalogue but before long he found himself on the move again jumping into dance music promotions for leading company Phuture Trax. In 1997 happy with the buzz of promoting some of the words leading dance producers he was head hunted has PR man to Kickin Records and Slip’n Slide feeding the media of artists such as New Jerseys’ Blaze’ and Detroit’s Juan Atkins.By the mid 90’s immersed in a growing record collection Toni felt it fit to start dabbling with the turntables. Thus his night time dj occupation began and before long he ventured into co producing as Stryker along with Crispin J Glover (Junior Boys Own), Andy Williams & Gordon Smith (Fuzz Against Junk) for Manchester’s Paper Recordings.As the end of the 90’s dawned another great musical opportunity arose with the fledgling retrospective imprint Strut Records. Building a two man operation with label owner Quinton Scott, Toni’s promotion skills helped pave the way to making Strut an international brand with launching a renaissance of yesteryears dance music originators. Brit Funk Pop Purveyor Eddy Grant, Body & Soul’s Danny Krivit & Francois K, Afro beat drummer Tony Allen, Blank Panther in house band Oneness Of Juju, Paradise Garage’s co founder Mel Cheren & Xpress 2’s Ashley Beedle are some of the legends he worked with and during this period became not only Grandmaster Flash’s, Tour manager, PR Guru but his confidante.After the wake of 911, changes were a foot in the U.K music industry and several independent dance labels were hit with closure. Strut Records stopped trading in 2002 and being burnt out with the loss of this infamous imprint Toni returned back to the studio with two of his old colleagues from Stryker Gordon Smith & Andy Williams (Yam Who?). Both parties had been getting influenced from a wave of Stateside Soul & Hip Hop and wanted to inject there own interpretations of this in the English underground dance psyche. Recreating new musical versions of contemporary Hip Hop, Rap and Soul a new sub genre of dance music was born. Named Pirate Soul Toni & Gordon had stumbled on a new music enterprise giving their project the moniker Blackbeard.2007 Blackbeard has notched up a host of remixes including Jamiroquai, to Jill Scott plus there own self penned works on their and Yam Who?’s joint Uptown Safari imprint. Toni’s also known for his quirky re-edits and too boot has launched an electronic house music project with Dominic DJD Dawson as Dawsano. When not djing Toni is involved with numerous music projects and has co-coordinated an album for Ian & The Dury co-writer Chaz Jankel soon to be released on London label Tirk.With an expansive insight into Toni’s musical history still to this day he’s most happiest behind the decks playing a variety of cutting edge and ground breaking genres that cant be pigeon holed, maybe best described as Soul Fusion. You should create your own MySpace Layouts like me by using nUCLEArcENTURy .COM's MySpace Profile Editor !