DJ Target
Brands keep claiming relevance to youth culture and keep getting it wrong. The people who built the scenes the brands now want to borrow from are rarely in the room when those decisions are made. Without that voice, partnerships look opportunistic and cultural campaigns age badly.
DJ Target is a BBC Radio 1Xtra broadcaster, founding member of Roll Deep, and author of Grime Kids, who helps audiences understand how UK grime grew from East London estates into a global cultural force.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with DJ Target
- He was inside grime before it was a marketing category. As a founding member of Roll Deep with Wiley, Dizzee Rascal, Skepta and Flowdan, his account of how the genre formed is first-hand, not retrofitted.
- His book Grime Kids became the definitive insider history of the scene and the source text for a BBC Three drama adaptation written by Theresa Ikoko. Few cultural movements are documented this directly by a participant.
- The Rap Game UK, which he co-hosts with Krept and Konan, earned a BAFTA nomination for Entertainment Programme, giving him broadcast craft alongside scene credibility.
- Eden’s Bloom, the freeze-dried baby food brand he co-founded with his wife Eva, gives him a working perspective on building a consumer brand from scratch outside the music industry.
- He brings the hosting craft of a daily 1Xtra slot to corporate panels, awards and culture-led conversations, where the bar is keeping a senior audience interested without scripting every line.
Biography highlights
- Founding member of Roll Deep alongside Wiley, Dizzee Rascal, Skepta and Flowdan; co-producer of the UK Top 20 single “Champagne Dance”.
- BBC Radio 1Xtra presenter since 2007, former co-music lead of the station.
- Co-host of BBC Three’s BAFTA-nominated The Rap Game UK with Krept and Konan.
- Author of Grime Kids: The Inside Story of the Global Grime Takeover (Trapeze, 2018).
- Executive producer on the BBC Three drama adaptation of Grime Kids, written by Theresa Ikoko and produced by Mammoth Screen.
- Co-founder of Eden’s Bloom, a freeze-dried baby food brand built with his wife Eva Joseph.
Biography
Grime did not arrive fully formed. It was built on pirate radio in East London by teenagers who had no expectation that anyone outside their estates would listen. Roll Deep was one of the collectives at the centre of that, and DJ Target was one of its founding members alongside Wiley, Dizzee Rascal, Skepta and Flowdan. Their 2002 single “Champagne Dance” reached number 13 on the UK Singles Chart and signalled that the scene could cross over without losing what made it.
That experience gave him the source material for Grime Kids: The Inside Story of the Global Grime Takeover, published by Trapeze in 2018. The book became the canonical insider account of the genre, later adapted into a BBC Three drama series written by Theresa Ikoko and produced by Mammoth Screen, with DJ Target as executive producer. He is one of the few participants in a cultural movement who has gone on to write its history and shape its dramatisation.
His broadcasting career sits alongside this. He has presented on BBC Radio 1Xtra since 2007, served as the station’s co-music lead, and co-hosts BBC Three’s The Rap Game UK with Krept and Konan, a series that earned a BAFTA nomination for Entertainment Programme. The hosting craft is the part senior audiences feel directly: keeping a room engaged, threading a conversation, working without a script.
Outside music he co-founded Eden’s Bloom with his wife Eva Joseph, a freeze-dried baby food brand named after their daughter. The venture gives him a working view of consumer brand-building from product to shelf, and a second story to draw on when the brief is entrepreneurship rather than culture.
Key speaking topics
- UK grime, garage and the rise of British Black music
- Cultural authenticity in brand and youth marketing
- Building a creative scene from the ground up
- Broadcasting and panel hosting
- Founder experience in consumer goods
Ideal for
- CMOs and brand leaders working on youth, music or culture-led campaigns
- Internal culture and DEI programmes that want substance rather than slogans
- Awards hosting, panel moderation and after-dinner sets where craft and cultural authority both matter
- Founder communities and accelerator audiences interested in consumer brand-building
Audience outcomes
- A first-hand account of how grime moved from pirate radio to global recognition, told by someone who was there
- A clearer read on what makes brand engagement with youth culture credible and what makes it fall flat
- A working founder’s view of building a consumer product brand alongside a creative career
- A hosted conversation that lands with audiences who can spot a scripted moderator from the back of the room