Tekno Dred

Ola has always been a lover of music and has a broad mind for taste. He purchased his first set of decks at the tender age of 15 and started DJ'ing at friends and family birthdays, weddings and other parties. He wanted nothing more for himself than to be able produce music and be creatively involved in the music industry, either as a DJ or producer. In the early 1990's, Ola's DJ'ing came into play in various venues up and down the UK and also on local pirate radio station, Friends FM. At the same time, he purchased records for £1 per box 100 from a liquidated company called G & M and set up a market stall as an outlet to sell the records from. These record batches were quite hilarious, containing all granny's favourites, but also some soul classics and rare, sought after deletions. After 6 months, Ola started distributing white labels up and down the country while his new partner Paul Watson, looked after and maintained the stall. But as the distribution became more popular, they decided to sell the stall and to move onto Stage One Distribution. By 1994 Ola and Paul parted company and The Stage One Music Company was founded. Although Ola was heavily into his DJ'ing and all the fun that it would bring, he was faced with a tough decision and had to choose the career path to take - would he be a DJ / Producer or would he manage the business of others around him, who he had seen needed help running and developing themselves as artists? He decided to concentrate his efforts on the business side of things and focussed on The Stage One Music Company, which has been a success within the independant sector of the music industry ever since. More recently, Ola has embarked on youth work within the community, introducing young people who would not normally have the opportunity, to gain insight into the music industry and its related industries. Ola feels he is putting something back into the community (not forgetting where he came from) and has been hell bent on helping those in the deprived community, where he once came from. Even though Ola has been very busy running the The Stage One Music Company alongside Laura, who is and always has been a great help and backbone to him and the company, he still had the chance to produce music under the name of Love Nation, releasing a classic track on Just Another Label called Positive and also under the name Tekno Dred, producing the innovative sounds of Hardcore, called Trancecore. He also made a bit of name for himself writing music for the production music industry under the names of Blak Majik, Dred and Voodoo Don. He claims his musical influences and inspirations come from "life itself and everything it holds & produces to enable us to enjoy and rely on sound".