“He was hugely respected and loved in the St Paul’s area of Bristol”
DJ Derek
He was one of the most familiar and long-standing faces in the Bristol music scene, the accountant who ditched the financial records for reggae and ska records and became a cult celebrity.
Now, a special event is being planned to celebrate the life and unlikely career of DJ Derek, ten years after his untimely death.
The event will take place at the Full Moon in Stokes Croft and include a screening of a documentary film made about DJ Derek before his death, some of Derek’s favourite music, and a panel discussion about his life and legacy featuring some legendary Bristol music figures including Queen Bee, Bunjy and Count Sky Larkin.
Many who have arrived in Bristol since DJ Derek’s passing in 2015 will only know about him because of the huge mural painted on the side of a house next to the M32 in Eastville, but DJ Derek – aka Derek Serpell-Morris – was one of the city’s most-loved music figures who, later in life became a cult-hero and gigged up and down the country.
He played Glastonbury and featured in a DIzzee Rascal video. He was due to kick off the huge Arcadia show in Queen Square in 2015, but weeks before, in the first week of July that year, he went missing, sparking a huge city-wide and nation-wide search.
READ MORE: How DJ Derek can be heard spinning his music again at the Star and GarterREAD MORE: ‘I’m very emotional’ – huge DJ Derek tribute mural nears completion next to M32
His body was found on land overlooking Filton Airfield next to The Mall at Cribbs Causeway the following March, bringing a tragic confirmation for his friends and family.
DJ Derek began as an accountant at the Bristol chocolate firm JS Fry, and grew up in St Andrew’s area of the city. He embraced the influx of the Windrush Generation of immigrants from the Caribbean, and became a huge fan of ska, reggae, dancehall and rocksteady.
In 1977, he quit his job as an accountant and took up a residency as a DJ at the Star and Garter in Montpelier, and was himself embraced by the community in St Paul’s as a man who knew his music.
Beezer’s picture of DJ Derek at the Star and Garter in Montpelier in 1984(Image: Beezer)
“He was dubbed the blackest white man in Bristol, was hugely respected and loved in the St Paul’s area of Bristol, where he lived and worked as a DJ,” said a spokesperson for the event.
“Over the past two decades, he had become a national cult figure, playing to packed venues across England and appearing in the video for Dizzee Rascal’s Dirtee Disco. Beyond the novelty value of a white former accountant playing Jamaican music, his love of the music and culture was sincere and profound,” he added.
The event takes place on July 2, from 7pm, and there is limited seating.