D-LYTE
Justin Beresford A.K.A. DJ D-Lyte has been impacting the UK hardcore scene since 2001 with his upfront, “crispy” beats. Little known fact though – Justin was originally slated as a hip-hop DJ, being fully immersed in the culture and more specifically turntablism. Everything would change when a friend would hand over a tape by the legendary Hardcore scratchmaster DJ Sy and eventually, the one known as D-Lyte would get hooked on the tunes that his newfound interest scratched over.
After some time, his love for the music expanded – becoming obsessed with the likes of Next Generation Records, DJ Brisk, Robbie Long, and Devastate as a teenager. Justin came from a town called Fareham, and as luck would have it, Robbie Long came from the next town over, Gosport. He worked in an industrial estate as a teen and would eat lunch with a guy by the name of Paul McHale, who just happened to be a friend of Robbie’s family.
At that time, he also began playing out at an event called Adrenalin, run by DJ Hixxy + Stu J. Robbie Long happened to be booked at one of the events, and D-Lyte would introduce himself to Robbie as “the kid from Fareham” and handed him a very primitive mix-tape. Robbie would actually listen to the mix, call Justin back, and would then become a mentor, calling on him regularly.
Robbie would then start Thin ‘N Crispy and call upon ‘the kid from Fareham’ to make some tunes, but the request was not fulfilled. At the same time, his friend, Alex (who was known as Stormtrooper) relocated, also hooking up with Rob and they would start making tracks together.
Also at the time, Justin had split with a longtime relationship, and, needing to get away, he went to visit Alex to get his mind off things. The two paired up creating a makina track with some drum ‘n bass drops in it, which would eventually become a track called “Spacehopper”.
D-Lyte would then go on to create releases on Thin ‘N Crispy for the next two years with Stormtrooper, including Da New Joint, Gypsy Disco, and Red Alert – as well as a collaboration with Australia’s Orbit 1 on Jibba Jabba and U Know U Want It.
In 2014, D-Lyte collaborated with Eufion on Hardcore Rapture Digital, followed by the launch of his label, Legitimate Recordings in 2015. One of the biggest nameless to grace the label is Hardcore Underground’s Fracus. The label was also an outlet to release his music, as Next Generation and Thin ‘N Crispy had halted releases. Every release had also achieved success, scoring high on digital store charts.
Some of his biggest accomplishments include playing HTID in Spain, while also playing alongside the scene’s biggest names, including Slipmatt, DJ Sy, Gammer, Fracus & Darwin, Hixxy, Scott Brown, Stormtrooper, and Jedi. D-Lyte also highly rates his back-to-back set with Druid in the main room at Fusion, as well as a massive festival called Beyond the Beat in Los Angeles that housed thousands of attendees and an all-star multi-genre line-up, including Gammer, Brisk, Ham, Vinylgroover, John B, Limewax and Luna-C. Power Surge 3 in Arizona alongside Showtek is also another great memory and not forget knocking the the legendary Dj Sy off the top spot by winning the UK Hardcore scratch master championship in the mid naughties!