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Originally known as $pyda Don out of Nottingham, he started out as a reggae dancehall DJ on the UK midlands reggae sound system circuit in the mid to late 80’s, he quickly established himself as a solid performer on sounds like Supertone, Quantrotone, Black Star & then ultimately joining the popular Notts based sound V.Rocket where he worked with a whole host of UK based Jamaican dancehall artists of that era. In 1987 $pyda decided to take a trip to Antigua to visit his parents and subsequently recorded 2 tracks produced by Corporal Montana for African Treasure, the first was ”Antigua got the best sunshine” which was a hit on the island, he then went onto record ”African Girl”with singer Caution as a follow up. He next ventured to Jamaica, utilising his links to King Jammys through his association with V.Rocket & Mike Phipps, he visited Jammys studio in Waterhouse, Kingston. This resulted in three tracks being recorded...... ”Kickin up a dust” ”Love and Unity” & ” Nah bless you”....... Returning to the UK in 1990 to a very static dancehall scene that hadn’t really progressed much since his departure, $pyda decided it was time for a change and diversed into the underground Hiphop and R&B circuit trying to integrate his vocal talents into some different styles of music, this brought about an enhancement of new flavour to his work on the mic. Around 93-94 he embeded himself further into the cutting edge of UK underground dance music and began to MC over what was then known as Jungle. His vocals worked perfectly with this style of music, owing to the fact that Jungle had a very heavy ragga influence at that time. Linking up with MC Bassman from Birmingham was a point when his career rose up to a new level in the UK. Working together they developed some popular freestyle routines on stage alongside MC Trigger from Manchester, this combination of MC’s soon began to get a strong following which in turn earned them respect and regular work at promotions and clubs up and down the country, such as:- Pandamonium, Telepathy, Rage, Hacienda, Dark House, Jungle Slammer, Detonate, Gamma Funk, Sidewinder, Formation Records and also residency at Hysteria from 95 up until the present, it was during this period of time that $pyda aquired the tag ’Black Tarantula’ courtesy of Bassman .... this is now a legendary collaboration of MC’s that ruled the midlands D&B circuit for the latter half of the 90’s.
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