DJ Rick Hopkins

Rick Hopkins was born and bred in Stevenage, Hertfordshire in 1970. He has always been into music listening to and being influenced by mainly very early electro and rap as well as a lot of old funk and rare groove.

DJ’ing first started for Rick in 1984 when he was just fourteen after being impressed by the early mix tapes that Tim Westwood would play on LWR (a pirate radio station that broadcasted from London). Rick also saw DJ’s play at Spatz (Oxford Street), which was run by the Family Quest and featured a young Tim Westwood as resident alongside the up and coming scratch DJ’s of London.

Rick’s first big break came when he was given a regular slot at Eclipse in Cambridge, playing upstairs in the ever popular Alternative/Balearic room. This lead to further bookings including Climax staged by local rave promoters at the Hatfield Forum Theatre as well as playing alongside local DJ legend Doug Osborne at many local raves in Hertfordshire and the surrounding areas.

Rick further established himself in 1995, when he became the very first Bedroom Bedlam DJ for the now defunct DJ Magazine. A young Andrew Wetherall read the article and Rick was offered the residency at the now seminal ‘Bloodsugar’ night alongside Andrew and Alex Knight. Another residency soon followed for the Universe Promoters at their Voyager night at the Complex, where Rick played alongside Richie Hawtin, James Pennington, Joey Beltram, Jeff Mills and Kevin Saunderson. In 1997 Rick played at Tribal Gathering, Luton Hoo, where the headliners were the amazing Kraftwerk.

In 1999 Rick joined forces with Haywire, who have since looked after all his bookings. He has subsequently played at various nights including The Bomb, Fabric, and 93 Feet East, Electrowerks, 333, Plastic People (for Bandulu’s album launch), The Sub Club alongside bios of Black Nation Records and The Dogstar for Electrocuted and Bugged Out. In 2002 Rick became a member of up and coming party promoters all round good guys The Outlet Collective who have began to turn heads with their electrically eclectic parties.

His style of mixing has developed since the late 80’s when he was a young hip hop DJ who fell into the acid house boom by accident but a love of all things electronic and funky has always been prevalent. Rick’s style of mixing has always been that of fluid beat mixing with plenty of eq-ing dropping everything from electro, techno, house and hip-hop.