Psychologists will tell you that what happens in the first five years of a child's life will shape them mentally for the rest of their days. Little surprise then that DJ/ MC/ broadcaster/ all-round entertainer Kid Fury's earliest childhood memories are of the black music soundtrack that resonated from his Mum's household. "My mum would always say, 'I can sing, y'know. I should've been a singer. Almost everything she did was to music - she tidied, cooked and gave me and my brothers licks all to a beat."
Born Franklin Humphrey in Oxford on Christmas Eve 1976 to parents hailng from St Vincent & Barbados, musical aspirations soon replaced the usual wild-eyed ambitions in the young Fury's heart. His mum's music consisted of black music greats like Dennis Brown, Garnett Silk, Peter Tosh, Bob Marley, Curtis Mayfield and Al Green.
Admitting 'I didn't get out much,' a lot of the 80s were spent absorbing pop of the 'Now That's What I Call Music' variety. But it also saw Fury discovering early rap like Run DMC, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, LL Cool J, Public Enemy and Doug E Fresh.
By then it was clear that music was the only thing that would do for a future career.
Fury's first DJing gig came about in the classic fashion - as a last-minute fill-in. In Summer '91, he was recruited by Steven 'Breadback' Williams of Oxford sound system Yard Force to play a community centre jam. He'd been a collector up to that point, and never DJed before, but by the end of the night the art of crowd-pleasing had set in. He worked hard to secure more gigs, primarily at Oxford's legendary Roots Club with round-the-way MC De Stressbringer as his hype man.
Next up was a Thursday residency at The Park End Club, still at the tender age of only 15. Constantly playing hip hop had inspired Fury to start studying the art of rhyming, too, and before long, he'd developed his verbal skills enough to join local crew Statiks, alongside co-members DJ Linx, Fly, G Money and Tiamat.
The missing link was radio, and Fury achieved his big break in this field when he was approached by his friend Nic Regisford to become a temporary Summer co-host on a show called 'Da Boombox' on Oxford station Juice FM, (later Oxygen 107.9 and Passion FM.)
Station bosses allowed him to stay on when the rest of the crew returned - David Laub, Ben Daines, A.N.T and Bennie G, now of The Mixologists - and Fury became a firm fixture in the team. Some useful links were forged in this period, as the show's guests included Aspex, Roots Manuva, Braintax, Lewis Parker, MK, Apollo and Jehst. Fury also hit it off with Harry Love and Verb T, and before long, they'd recorded their track 'Ill Lyrical Behaviour' on Apeman Records. In 2000, the Boombox crew disbanded, leaving Fury to carry on the show solo. By the end of the year, it had been voted fifth best radio show by readers of Hip Hop Connection magazine.
Another key alliance was with DJ Mark Devlin, with whom Fury presented two more memorable shows entitled 'Joints & Jams' on the station. For a two-year period, they travelled the length and breadth of the UK blazing up clubs, the mileage decreasing the value of MD's car unfeasibly in the process. The flagship event was the Saturdays at The Forum in Cardiff, one of the largest-attended and highest-profile urban music events outside of London. Fury's quirky and witty freestyles also became an eagerly-awaited feature of MD's nationally-distributed mix CDs.
Recent years have seen Fury grinding further in all areas; he's secured a new Saturday show called Passion Phat Club alongside DJ Kim and Spex, DJs at a wide assortment of venues in Oxford and London, and continues to perform as an MC at live shows and on track, in various collaborative guises. As a DJ, Fury draws inspiration from giving his competitors a run for their money. "I'm trying my hardest to be somebody that shows bandwagon DJs they need to quit," he explains. "I do it by being a turntablist, but not letting trickery prevent me from moving the crowd at the same time."
