Derek B (born Derek Boland, 15 January 1965, in London. Died 15 November 2009 of heart failure). When he was 15, he started DJing in a mobile unit around London, before joining local pirate radio stations such as Kiss FM and LWR and finally starting his own station, WBLS (not to be confused with the radio station of the same name in New York). He joined Simon Harris' Music of Life as the closest thing they had to an A&R man. When a planned compilation of U.S. hip hop called Def Beats 1 (Music of Life, 1986) ran short of tracks, Boland stepped in to record a track called "Rock the Beat".

Read more about Derek B on Last.fm.