David Dyson grew up in the countryside of Leicestershire, England, where a lack of nearby neighbors meant he could practice drums for hours without complaint. His introduction to the instrument came remarkably early. At three years old, he accompanied his grandparents to a pub, where a live band was playing. The drummer noticed Dyson tapping on glasses with cocktail sticks and gave him his first proper pair of drumsticks. The encounter ignited a passion that would take him from university and conservatoire training to international tours, prestigious recording studios, and sessions with some of the most prominent artists in contemporary music. Yet even as his reputation as a drummer grew, Dyson’s ambitions extended beyond the instrument. He was always a producer at heart.

His professional drumming career has been defined by both technical ability and an instinct for choosing the right musical contribution. Dyson played drums on Jorja Smith’s “The One,” associated with her critically acclaimed debut album Lost & Found, which received a nomination for British Album of the Year at the 2019 Brit Awards. His work with Tems includes drumming on “Unfortunate” and arranging the strings for “You In My Face,” both featured on her debut album, Born in the Wild. Released in 2024, the album earned a Grammy nomination for Best Global Music Album and appeared on numerous year-end lists, including Billboard’s and Rolling Stone’s. Dyson also co-produced “Hate” on Berwyn’s Who Am I, an album that won Best Album at the 2025 Ivor Novello Awards and was nominated for the Mercury Prize.

His live credits are equally substantial. David Dyson has performed with artists including Camila Cabello, Chappell Roan, Raye, Yungblud, and Louis Tomlinson, while his musical experiences have brought him into contact with influential producers such as Trevor Horn and Tony Visconti. Something of a session regular at Abbey Road Studios, Dyson has also performed with Gregory Porter and the National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Great Britain inside Buckingham Palace. His first show with Louis Tomlinson, at Manchester Arena in 2017, remains a vivid memory, with the roar of the audience overwhelming his in-ear monitors. 

Dyson has never perceived the drummer’s job as simply demonstrating skill. He approaches the instrument as a means of shaping a song’s emotional trajectory, knowing when to intensify a groove and when to leave space. “The drums are the foundation and heartbeat of any live show, and I feel the same way about production,” he notes. The same principle applies in the studio, where a carefully chosen snare sound, a change in rhythmic emphasis, or the decision not to use drums at all can be more significant than a technically dazzling performance.

This manner of thinking developed naturally from his musical education. Initially dreaming of playing in bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dyson became increasingly fascinated by jazz and later immersed himself in classical and jazz studies at university and conservatoire. He went on to work across musical theatre, pop, jazz, orchestral, and choral music, developing a broad musical vocabulary that informs his work today. His influences include Phil Collins, whose transition from Genesis drummer to frontman and solo artist represents a seamless integration of performance, songwriting, and production; Stewart Copeland, whose rhythmic imagination helped give the Police their distinctive energy and who later became a much in-demand composer and orchestrator; and Questlove, whose work with The Roots demonstrates how a drummer can shape the entire identity of a musical project.

David Dyson’s own movement into production accelerated during lockdown, when he had time to concentrate on developing his craft. But the desire to be involved in music from its earliest stages had always been there. He thinks first about the structure, melody, and emotional character of a song, then turns to the details that bring it into focus. David’s understanding of the relationship between drums and bass helps him establish the pocket, while his familiarity with different musical traditions allows him to recognize when complexity is useful and when simplicity is more powerful. The distinction between playing drums and producing is therefore less a question of changing roles than of expanding the scope of his musical decisions. Dyson is not a drummer who happens to produce; he is a producer whose understanding of rhythm gives him deep insight into the music.

Different Artists, Different Musical Worlds

The range of David Dyson’s production work is reflected in the contrasting musical identities of the artists with whom he collaborates. His work with Oliver Malcolm, Braye, 80purppp, and Skiifall spans alternative pop, West African musical traditions, experimental R&B, and Caribbean-influenced sounds. Rather than applying a fixed production formula, Dyson adapts to the particular character of each project, helping develop the music without losing what makes the artist distinctive.

With Oliver Malcolm, that process has extended across both touring and recording. Dyson co-wrote and co-produced several tracks on Mr Malcolm, including “Baby Don’t Go,” “Ginseng,” “Cause of You,” “Station Hill,” “Ghosts,” and “Still Bleed.” Their process is rooted in improvisation, allowing ideas to emerge through playing rather than following a rigid arrangement. The aim is to capture the energy of a performance while leaving room for experimentation. 

David’s work with Braye draws on a different musical vocabulary. Dyson has produced two of the artist’s EPs and is now completing an upcoming album developed across Lagos and London. The process here embraces technology to allow for the transfer of ideas across the space of international borders when artist and producer cannot always physically be in the same location. Moving between the two cities has allowed the music to evolve through successive stages of writing, performance and refinement. 

On 80purppp’s forthcoming ten-track album, Dyson has taken on the executive producer role to help establish the record’s overall musical direction. Vacillating between London and Toronto’s Sony Music Canada studio, this collaboration has yielded a tone that moves between alternative R&B, darker introspective textures, and the rhythmic pull of Afrobeats with a looser groove-driven sensibility. The challenge is to bring these influences into a coherent album while preserving the contrasts that give the music its character.

Multilingual artist Skiifall blends Afro-influenced music and dub with alternative R&B, Dancehall, and Zouk. Dyson has been producing sessions in Toronto for this artist with an approach that is focused on unique identity in a cohesive presentation. Brit Award-Winner Daniel Bedingfield professes the benefits of any artist or producer working with David Dyson declaring, “He won’t let bad music happen, I want him and his ears in every session I do.” Bedingfield and Dyson are currently working on an album together featuring some of the biggest names in garage, including Bigfoot, Craig David, Wookie, Sticky, and more. 

Across these projects, Dyson’s contribution is not to impose a signature sound regardless of the artist, but instead to recognize what each artist brings into the room and help it become more fully realized. His experience as a drummer remains central to that process, but the larger perspective is unmistakably that of a producer.

From Artist Production to the Language of Film

Dyson is now extending that perspective into film composition, including work on an upcoming major blockbuster featuring an A-list cast. The move represents a new creative direction but the underlying principles are familiar. Whether working with a singer, a band, or a director, David begins by considering what the music needs to accomplish and how it can serve a larger emotional purpose.

In artist production, the challenge is to help musicians develop an identity and create recordings that stand on their own. Film introduces a different relationship between sound and storytelling. The music must complement the visuals, reinforce the director’s intentions, and deepen the audience’s connection to what is happening on screen. A score can establish atmosphere, heighten tension, or give a scene emotional weight, but it can also become intrusive if it attempts to communicate what the images already express.

Knowing when not to play is as important as knowing what to play for Dyson. As a drummer, he practiced restraint in leaving space for a vocal, holding back a fill, or allowing a groove to breathe. There is a natural counterpart in film composition to this concept. Music must sometimes lead the audience into a moment, while at other times it should recede and allow the visuals to carry the story. The discipline is similar, even if the creative brief changes. An elaborate arrangement is not automatically better than a simple one, just as a technically demanding drum part is not necessarily the right part for a song.

David Dyson’s career has already taken him from the touring stage to celebrated studios and collaborations with award-winning artists. Production allows him to bring those experiences together, influencing not just how a performance sounds but how an entire piece of music develops. Film offers a further opportunity to apply that instinct to storytelling on a different scale. The constant, across every setting, is his belief that the music should never exist merely to demonstrate what a musician can do. It should make the work itself more compelling.

Written in partnership with Tom White

Michelle Grace’s “Me Time” arrives with the confidence of someone who has written a No. 1 before — because she has. The production leans into a warm, mid-tempo dance-pop pocket: a bassline that never overplays its hand, a chorus built for a single uncomplicated hook rather than three competing ones, and a vocal take that sits forward in the mix like it has nothing to prove. 

What’s most interesting here is restraint. Where a comeback single often reaches for maximalism — a key change, a drop, a guest verse to signal relevance — “Me Time” does none of that. The arrangement stays uncluttered through two verses and a bridge, which is a harder trick to pull off than it sounds, and it’s the choice that lets the lyric do the heavy lifting instead of the production. 

That’s the line the whole mix is built to frame. There’s space cut around the vocal right where it lands, no riser or filter sweep competing for attention, just enough low end to keep the groove honest. It’s a small, disciplined production choice, and it’s the kind that separates someone who understands pop songwriting from someone who’s just imitating its surface. 

It’s a song built less for the festival drop and more for the drive home — which, for an artist re-entering the conversation on her own terms rather than chasing the sound of the moment, might be exactly the point. “Me Time” doesn’t need a remix package to prove itself. It already knows what it is. 

Written in partnership with Tom White

Petel Asaf is not interested in pretending her ambitions are modest. The model has a very specific dream: becoming a Victoria’s Secret Angel. After years of building a portfolio across international markets, she is comfortable saying the quiet part out loud.

The goal is aspirational, not an announced appointment. Asaf has not claimed to have signed with Victoria’s Secret. What she does have, by her account, is a collection of commercial-fashion experiences that helps explain why she considers a bigger runway and fashion platform within reach.

Her credits span projects associated with ASOS, JD Sports and Juicy Couture during a period in London, as well as SHEIN, Forever 21 and Missguided while working in China. They reflect the breadth of her experience, from accessible retail fashion to attention-grabbing billboard imagery, rather than any one signature look.

A Fashion Education Across Borders

Asaf’s story begins far from an established fashion capital. Born in Israel, she spent part of her childhood in Guatemala and Costa Rica. Modeling started at 16, and international assignments later meant moving between markets and learning to navigate unfamiliar places on her own.

The work was not easy to secure. Asaf recalls exhausting days in China and repeated casting rejections before a SHEIN campaign changed her momentum. London then provided further campaigns and billboard opportunities. The recurring lesson was that a recognizable brand name on a résumé is usually preceded by a great deal of work that no audience gets to see.

Now she is beginning a new phase in the United States, where her ambitions extend beyond being photographed in other labels’ clothing. She also wants to create a fashion business of her own.

The Designer Instinct Came First

That entrepreneurial idea reaches back to childhood. Raised by a single mother with limited financial resources, Asaf remembers cutting and sewing clothes to create looks her family could not simply buy. What began as improvisation became an early way of expressing her taste.

For her, a future label would close the loop between the girl who altered hand-me-down pieces and the working model who has worn clothes for globally recognized retailers. She has not announced a launch date or a brand name, so the concept remains a long-term aspiration rather than an upcoming product release.

Asaf has also appeared on Israel’s Big Brother, an experience that gives her fashion ambitions an entertainment dimension. At a time when models increasingly build their own audiences, her path does not have to follow just one runway.

Becoming a Victoria’s Secret Angel is an ambitious benchmark. Building a label is another. Whether either milestone comes next is unknown, but Asaf’s direction is clear: she wants to move from appearing in campaigns to shaping the image, and perhaps eventually the fashion, herself.

See more of Petel Asaf’s style and next chapter on Instagram.

Written in partnership with Tom White