DJSwerve

Platinum selling, Kiss 100 presenter, DJ Swerve is one of the UK’s leading RnB and hip hop club DJs. A DMC Championship finalist, Swerve’s career started from the age of fourteen. That was the year Swerve ‘cut up’ his first record on his parent’s stereo. By the age of 18, Swerve had saved enough money by working during his summer holidays to buy his first Technics deck. However, he could only afford to buy one, so his mom and dad bought the other. The family stereo was saved and the rest they say is history...Swerve bought his first hip hop record, LL Cool J’s ‘Radio’ at seventeen, and from that moment on, he has been hooked on the beats, rhymes and the raw substance that is urban music - especially hip-hop...

By now he had the basics of scratching and mixing, and coupled with an impressive record collection, Swerve played his first DJ set at a community Scout Hall in, South London – a night he promoted himself with friends. He recalls his first DJ gig as being “nerve racking”, but definitely enjoyable.

Fast forward to 1992 and after a few years of DJing and practicing his skills, Swerve entered the prestigious DMC Championship making it through to the finals. However, the competition was eventually won by DJ Sparra.

All was not lost, as the recognition, exposure and confidence Swerve gained by entering the DMC competition, quickly led to more DJ bookings up and down and the country, abroad, and becoming tour DJ for now defunct female group Mis-Teeq. Swerve has played at the UK’s biggest urban events including the Princes Trust Urban Music Festival and Southport Weekender, in addition to venues such as Fabric and Ministry; not to mention an array of national and international gigs as far reaching as the US, Taiwan, Dubai and Scandinavia.

In 2000 Swerve was offered a late night Monday show on KISS 100 playing the best in Hip-Hop, RnB and classics, however, the show was quickly promoted to its current Tuesday evening timeslot. Swerve is one of the longest serving specialist DJs on Kiss. His show, broadcast every Tuesday from 9 –11pm is the leading source for fresh new music and classics featuring a lively mix of interviews, competitions and straight up fun!

Swerve has released four compilations to date: Pure Hip-Hop 2002 which shifted 60,000 copies, Pure Hip-Hip 2003 (100,000), Urban Kiss 2003 (100,000) and Urban Kiss 2004 (60,000). The albums were released on Warners and Universal respectively.

Recently, Swerve has hooked up with musical director Howard Francis. Together they work under the moniker MOS Wanted, producing and remixing, and have recently remixed Ciara’s 1,2 Step for the iconic independent US label AV8. They are currently writing original material and Swerve is working with the unsigned group Whistle Jacket and collaborating with legendary garage producer Sticky.

Kiss 100 launched their first free pod cast in February of this year: nine tunes from unsigned UK artists available to download from Kiss100.com or iTunes. Three of these tracks have been selected by Swerve, including his own remix of UK artist Kyra. At the time of going to press, a staggering 50,000 pod casts had already been downloaded since the launch at the beginning of this week.

In between DJing, presenting and music production, Swerve also does voiceover work for TV and radio whilst indulging in his other passions: gadgets and computer games. Swerve also has a keen interest in nearly every sport going and despite being a connoisseur on all things urban; on a good day you’d be mistaken for thinking he has just stepped off a GQ photo shoot.

Oh, and did we mention his killer collection of 80-s pop 7”.
Oh yes, they get played out from time to time too!

www.djswerve.com

For bookings please contact Simon Petterson:
simon.p@mainstageartists.com