DJ Die, is an English DJ and music producer. He was a founder of drum and bass label Full Cycle Recordings and a member of Roni Size & Reprazent (1997 Mercury Prize winners) and Breakbeat Era.
Kausman spent his formative years in Barnstaple before moving to Bristol in 1985 as a teenager. An early interest in house and hardcore led to a musical partnership with friend Jody Wisternoff (who later formed Way Out West with Nick Warren). Die DJ’d for a brief period with Circus Warp – a free party sound system. Recording together under the aliases of Tru Funk and Sub Love on Three Stripe Records, they created hardcore staples like “4am” and made numerous DJing appearances at early Universe raves. The partnership, however, was a brief one.
After a chance meeting with Roni Size at Bristol’s Replay Records store in 1992, this led to their first collaboration in the form of Agility for V Recordings and Die’s ongoing contributions to the Full Cycle Recordings catalogue.
Together with Size, he originated the seminal “Music Box” which was to become the title track of the debut Full Cycle compilation in 1996. Emerging firstly as a core member of Reprazent and later in 1998 as one third of Breakbeat Era (a project spawned by the “Music Box” track of the same name), he soon found himself remixing for DJs including DJ Shadow, Towa Tei and DJ Cam. His remix of the Reprazent single “Watching Windows” was released in its own right by Talkin’ Loud. He has his own label called Clear Skyz.
DJ Die has also recorded under the aliases Break & Die (DJ Die and DJ Break), Die & Clipz (DJ Die and DJ Clipz), Swabe, 4 Tree, Breakbeat Era (with Leonie Laws and Roni Size), DNA (with Bill Riley), Scorpio (with Roni), Wings (with Roni and Krust), Kamanchi (with Krust) and DieMantle (with Dismantle).
Dynamite MC (born Dominic Smith, 7 October 1973) is an English rapper and MC. He originally gained prominence in jungle/drum and bass, working with Roni Size & Reprazent, but has also released hip hop material.
Career
He started his MCing career on pirate radio station Crush FM, broadcasting in Gloucester, South West England during the early 1990s. He met Roni Size in 1994 and began MCing for the Full Cycle crew. When the Bristol collective formed the live band Reprazent, Dynamite shared vocal duties with singer, Onallee. Their debut album New Forms won the Mercury Music Prize in 1997. Dynamite’s role was enhanced for Reprazent’s second album, the hip-hop influenced In the Mode (2000).
Solo work
Following this, Dynamite collaborated with a range of artists including The Nextmen, High Contrast, Caspa, Netsky, DJ Skitz, Scratch Perverts, Andy C and DJ Zinc, releasing a solo album The World of Dynamite (2004). In 2006, a remix CD, Big Man Talk was released on the Strong Records label (featuring samples from Enya and Kanye West). A third album, Styles Galore was set to follow in 2006.
Other works
Dynamite MC hosts a two-hour ‘Smooth Grooves’ show on Kiss 100 every Monday night at 9:00pm (GMT), as well as hosting the Fresh 40 R&B and dance chart across some of the UK’s commercial radio stations on Sunday afternoons.
The track “Bounce” is featured on the soundtrack of Madden NFL ’07. “Bounce” and “After Party” also feature in the video game, Need for Speed: Carbon. He recently worked with Camo & Krooked for their song “Stand Up” (Camo & Krooked vs Friction feat. Dynamite MC), with Netsky on a track titled “The Whistle Song” for Netsky’s album, 2, and with Dyro on “Against All Odds”.