Grooverider

Raymond Bingham grew up in Streatham, South London, and was fired from an accounting apprenticeship because he couldn't reconcile it with DJing until 4am. He started out on the pirate station Phase One in the mid-1980s alongside Colin Dale, Dave Angel, and Fabio, playing soul, hip hop, and disco before Larry Heard's "Mysteries of Love" converted him and Fabio to house music.

In 1988 he and Fabio began their residency at Rage, the Heaven nightclub night that became the crucible for jungle and drum and bass, and Grooverider earned the nickname "the Godfather" for how consistently he pushed the new sound forward. He coined the term "Hardstep" for the harder styles he favored, and in 1994 launched the label Prototype, on which he recorded early tracks as Codename John and helped build the reputations of artists like Matrix and Boymerang while pushing the genre toward the harsher sound that became known as Techstep.

He held a long-running residency at Goldie's Metalheadz night at the Blue Note, and worked closely with studio partner Matt Quinn, known as Optical, on his solo material. His radio show with Fabio ran first on Kiss FM and later on BBC Radio 1, spreading drum and bass to a national audience.