IT STARTED BEFORE I KNEW WHAT IT WAS

There’s a photograph of me at about one year old, sitting on the sofa surrounded by records from my family’s collection. My uncle was obsessed with Elvis. At the time they were just objects around me.

Looking back, it’s funny that records were there right at the beginning.

1993 - THE SOUND

My parents ran M&J Grocers on the High Street in New Bradwell, Milton Keynes.

One day I was standing in the shop when I heard this incredible music blasting from one of the terraced houses opposite. I had no idea what it was.

So I crossed the road and knocked on the door.

A guy called John answered. I probably looked like the police turning up. I just said something like, “That music is awesome. What is it?”

It was Carl Cox.

John gave me his copy of Carl Cox Live at The Edge.

I was hooked.

That same year I went to my first rave in Milton Keynes

Suddenly the music I had heard coming from across the road had a whole world attached to it: DJs, sound systems, flyers, clothes, crowds and thousands of people brought together by music.

I wanted in.

THE DECKS

Not long afterwards, while I was at Stantonbury, I skipped an English lesson with my friend Scott. He'd forgotten his PE kit and needed to walk home to get it, so I went with him.

In his bedroom I saw two Technics turntables.

I didn’t understand why anyone needed two record players.

He explained what DJs did with them.

That was it.

I needed to learn.

I didn’t have the money to simply go out and buy a full Technics setup. So I started with what I had: my dad’s Sony stack-system turntable, a second-hand SL-1200 and old records belonging to my dad, uncles and aunts.

It wasn’t the setup I wanted.

But it was enough to start.

PETERBOROUGH - FINDING MY TASTE

My teenage years weren’t straightforward.

I eventually had to leave Milton Keynes because of the environment I was getting caught up in and was sent to stay with family in Peterborough.

First I stayed with my aunt and cousins. I didn’t have much money to buy music, so I listened to whatever was around me.

Their albums opened up another world: TLC, Jamiroquai, the Friday soundtrack, Beastie Boys, MTV and everything else I could absorb.

Later I stayed with my uncle, and that’s where I became hooked on the Fugees, R&B, hip-hop, the NBA, the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan.

The rave music never disappeared.

Instead, my taste just kept getting wider.

Eventually I had enough money to buy my own Technics 1210s.

Now I could really start digging.

I’d go into the record shop in Peterborough searching through vinyl. One week it might be drum & bass like Valley of the Shadows. Another it could be house like Professional Widow.

I wasn’t interested in staying in one lane.

If it moved me, I wanted to know what it was.

By the time I left for university, I already had my decks, my records and my own musical identity.

BATH - FINDING A WAY IN

I went to Bath to study pharmacy.

Naturally, I wanted a club residency.

I couldn’t get one.

So I found another way in.

I played events for different university societies and in the Students’ Union club on campus.

Then I joined URB Bath radio.

I got myself onto the breakfast show with my flatmates, but I also wanted somewhere to play the underground music I actually loved, so I started doing a night-time show.

Eventually I became Head of Music.

For someone obsessed with discovering music, it was heaven.

Promos. Constantly.

New music arriving before everyone else had heard it.

THE FIRST CLUB

Then I finally got my first proper club night.

It wasn’t some underground rave.

It was T’s.

A cheese night.

I took it.

And I’m glad I did, because it taught me something record collecting couldn’t: how to read a crowd.

I learnt that being a DJ wasn’t about proving how good your record collection was. It was about understanding the people standing in front of you.

So everything started finding its way into my sets.

House. Trance. UK Garage. R&B. Hip-hop.

Whatever connected.

THE WORLD GOT BIGGER

One opportunity led to another.

Cafés. DJ competitions. R&B nights. Cadillacs. Po Na Na. Babylon. Creation in Bristol. Fez.

Then Reading, Swindon, London and Cambridge.

I appeared on Galaxy 101.

I warmed up for Andrez from Damage.

Then music started taking me abroad.

Ayia Napa. Ibiza. Zante.

The kid who once didn’t understand why anyone needed two turntables was actually doing it.

THE DECISION

Then came a choice.

There was an opportunity involving Twice As Nice in Spain.

At the same time, I had my Boots pre-registration placement waiting for me.

And I chose pharmacy.

Not because I had fallen out of love with music.

I grew up without much money. Becoming a pharmacist represented something DJing couldn’t promise me: security.

I wanted to build a better life and help pull my family out of the circumstances we had grown up in.

So when music and responsibility finally collided, I chose responsibility.

And gradually the other world disappeared.

The record shops. The promos. The radio stations. The clubs. The flights. The feeling of discovering a record and knowing you couldn’t wait to play it to somebody.

Life moved on.

But apparently that part of me didn’t.

OFF-RECORD - THE RETURN

Decades later, I’m still a pharmacist.

But I’m also standing behind Technics again.

I’m discovering music again.

I’m talking to DJs again.

And I realised I didn’t want the next chapter of my life to involve slowly watching that world disappear completely.

That’s where Off-Record comes from.

Fashion is the vehicle.

Music is the reason.

Off-Record is my way back into the world that shaped me: the DJs, records, clubs, discovery, people, nights, stories and culture.

But it’s also for everyone who understands that music is more than something playing in the background.

It becomes part of who you are.