David "Ram Jam" Rodigan

David Rodigan Also known as Roddy, Ram Jam , David Michael Rodigan MBE (born 24 June 1951) is an English radio DJ who also performs as a disc jockey for his sound system. Known for his selections of reggae and dancehall music, he has played on stations including Radio London, Capital 95.8, Kiss 100, BBC Radio 1Xtra, BBC Radio 2 and BFBS Radio. Rodigan was born on a military base in Hanover. He attended Gosford Hill School, Kidlington, Oxfordshire. He has stated that his passion for Jamaican music was initiated by watching Millie Small perform her 1964 hit My Boy Lollipop at the Ready Steady Go! TV show as a school boy. By the age of 15, Rodigan was DJing at school dances and youth clubs. Leaving school in 1970, he spent a year studying economics before leaving to study drama. Despite pursuing an acting career, Rodigan kept his passion for music alive, selling records in Oxford then Putney, before obtaining a job on Radio London in 1978 to alternate with Tony Williams on the Reggae Rockers programme. A year later he was offered a permanent slot at Capital Radio to present Roots Rockers, which ran for 11 years. In 1990 a change in management and music policy at the station led to David leaving to start a new show for Kiss FM when it relaunched that September as London's first legal 24-hour dance music station. He hosted the Sunday night slot from 11pm till midnight until November 2012, when the slot was moved to midnight and he resigned in protest over what he called the "continued marginalisation" of the reggae genre.

Rodigan has clashed established soundsystems like Killamanjaro, Stone Love, Barry G and Bass Odyssey. He has acted as tour DJ for reggae and dancehall artists including Shinehead. During the 1970s and 1980s, he worked as an actor and appeared in a variety of TV programmes, including a part in the Doctor Who serial, The Mysterious Planet. In 1984 he joined BFBS (British Forces Broadcasting Service) where he broadcast his weekly reggae show for 25 years until 2009. In 2006, Rodigan was added to the Radio Academy hall of fame. Vocal samples of Rodigan can be found on the dubstep track "Hard" by Breakage, on the introductory track of Caspa's 2009 Album Everybody's Talking, Nobody's Listening, and on the intro to Alborosie's debut album "Soul Pirate", and the main vocal of Sukh Knight's "Ganja", plus countless other jungle/drum & bass tracks. Ad-Rock mentions Rodigan by name on the 2011 Beastie Boys track 'Say It'.