For over 40 years David Rodigan has been the top dog in the bass heavy-atmosphere of Britain’s reggae dance-halls. The key to his success has been an unsinkable passion for reggae music, which first took a hold of him as a schoolboy when he heard ska music in the early ’60s. He developed an obsession with the music of Jamaica that generated an encyclopaedic knowledge of the island’s every artist, every song and every rhythm track.

His earliest experience of dee jaying was during lunch breaks once a week in the gym at Gosford Hill School in Kidlington, Oxford. On leaving school he landed a place at the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama in 1971, where he spent three years studying to become an actor. He worked extensively in repertory theatre and appeared in a number of television productions such as ‘Doctor Who’ (BBC) and ‘Shackleton’ (BBC); he also performed his one-man show ‘Zima Junction’ at literature festivals and theatres in the 1970s; a dramatisation of the poem by the Russian writer Yevtushenko.

In 2014, David joined forces with platinum selling act Chase & Status and the legendary Shy FX, under the collective name Rebel Sound, competing in the Red Bull Music Culture Clash at Earls Court in front of 25,000 fans plus another 2million streaming the event from the comfort of their own homes. Rebel Sound won the clash comprehensively and trended #1 on Twitter worldwide and were quickly invited to headline Reading & Leeds festival in 2015.