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Dev (DJ)

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Dev
Born
Devin Joseph Jordan Griffin

(1984-12-23) 23 December 1984 (age 39)
Mill Hill, London, England
EducationThe Ravenscroft School
Occupation(s)DJ
Actor
Years active2002-present
Career
ShowDev Griffin
StationHeart
Time slotSaturday, 12 pm – 4 pm
StylePop
CountryUnited Kingdom

Devin Joseph Jordan Griffin (born 23 December 1984) is a British radio presenter, DJ and actor, who is most commonly known for his former weekend afternoon shows on BBC Radio 1. Since January 2nd, he now presents a weekend show on Heart from 12-4.

Early and personal life

Griffin was born on 23 December 1984 in Hackney, London, United Kingdom, to an Irish mother and a Jamaican father. He and his twin sister are the youngest of four siblings. He was educated at The Ravenscroft School and attended the after-school drama club at the Anna Scher Theatre School, where he met friend and future co-host Reggie Yates.

Dev's Twitter profile picture is him playing a guitar with Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney.

Career

Early career

Dev began his radio career in 2000, aged 16 on pirate radio station Freek FM, specialising in garage and jungle. Here he was known as DJ Devstar and presented with Yates (who used the moniker MC Nobizzi).[1] In 2002, whilst studying for his A Levels at The Ravenscroft School, Griffin landed a job co-presenting the children's interactive TV show Smile (credited as DJ Devstar) alongside Yates, Fearne Cotton and Nev the Bear. Six months into filming, he was approached by BBC Radio 1Xtra to present a Saturday afternoon show with Yates. In 2003, Dev left Smile to concentrate on his radio career.

Acting

In 2006, Dev created and starred in children's sitcom The Crust.[2] He has starred as himself in Friday Download: The Movie, as a result of campaigning at length on air to get himself a role in a B movie.

DJ

Dev was a member of the Rebellious music collective and played in venues at Ayia Napa and Faliraki.[1] He opened for Kanye West at the Hammersmith Apollo and Jurassic 5 at the London Astoria. He also played at the Radio 1 Teen Awards.

Radio

Dev joined BBC Radio 1Xtra at the launch in August 2002, where he and Yates presented The Lowdown with Reg and Dev on Saturday afternoons. In August 2004, the show moved to Saturday mornings, with Dev additionally doing the show by himself on Sunday mornings. Yates left 1Xtra in December 2004, leaving Dev to present both Saturday and Sunday morning shows by himself. Following further schedule changes in September 2005, Dev moved to Saturday afternoons where he stayed until 2007, when he became presenter of the weekday early morning show.

In July 2009, he moved to BBC Radio 1 to take on the weekend breakfast show.[3] In September, he moved from the weekend slot to replace Greg James as host of the weekday early breakfast show, between 4am and 6:30am. In March 2014, he left the weekday slot and returned to the weekend breakfast show, taking over from Gemma Cairney. He has regularly presented The Radio 1 Breakfast Show (sitting in for Nick Grimshaw), the Scott Mills show and the Greg James show as a relief presenter.

In 2018, he and Alice Levine began hosting their own show, Dev & Alice, in the weekend breakfast slot. The duo were moved to the weekend afternoon show the same year. On 9 August 2020 the final show aired, following the announcement of Levine's departure from Radio 1.

In November 2020, BBC Radio 1 announced major scheduling changes for the end of 2020 and 2021. Dev, along with Huw Stephens and Phil Taggart would not be rejoining the lineup in 2021. The latter two are not leaving the BBC all together, and are instead returning to their former shows on BBC Radio Cymru, BBC Radio 6 Music and BBC Radio Ulster respectively. Instead, Dev is leaving the BBC to join Heart after 18 years with the corporation. His last show was 13:00 - 16:00 on the 20th December 2020.[4] He'll make his Heart debut on Saturday 2 January 2021, when he launches his brand new show 12:00-16:00.

Television

Dev reached the final of the 2017 series of Celebrity Masterchef, alongside Ulrika Jonsson and eventual winner, Angellica Bell.

Dev participated in the 17th series of Strictly Come Dancing, partnered with professional dancer Dianne Buswell. They became the third Strictly couple to leave the show after losing a dance-off to Emma Weymouth and Aljaž Skorjanec. In April 2019, Dev took part on a celebrity special of SAS: Who Dares Wins.

In October 2020, Dev participated in a celebrity edition of The Chase.

Radio presenting

  • Heart’s Feel Good Weekend 12-4pm, Saturday, 2 January 2021 - Present (Heart)
  • Weekend Afternoon Show 1-4pm, Friday. Saturday and Sunday, 17 November 2018 - (9 August 2020 with Alice Levine) - 20 December 2020 (BBC Radio 1)
  • Weekend Breakfast Show 6-10am, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 29 March 2014 - 11 November 2018 (BBC Radio 1)
  • Early Breakfast 4-6:30am, Monday-Friday, 21 September 2009 - 28 March 2014 (BBC Radio 1)
  • Weekend Breakfast Show 7-10am, Saturday-Sunday, 4 July 2009 - 20 September 2009 (BBC Radio 1)
  • Early Show 6-8am, Monday-Friday, 8 October 2007 - 1 July 2009 (BBC Radio 1Xtra)
  • Weekend Afternoon Show midday-2pm, Saturdays, September 2005 - 6 October 2007 (BBC Radio 1Xtra)
  • Weekend Morning Show 9am-midday, Saturday'Sunday, 8 August 2004 - September 2005
  • Lowdown with Reg & Dev midday-3pm, Saturdays, 17 August 2002 - 31 September 2004 (BBC Radio 1Xtra)

Radio show features

Early breakfast

  • The CD Graveyard Listeners sent Dev their old CD singles and he would play them on Radio 1 one last time before sending them to the 'CD Graveyard', to either CD Heaven or CD Hell.
  • I'm Here All Week On Monday 23 November 2009 a new feature began called "I'm Here All Week", also known as "Resident DJ", where a listener gets to choose a song for each day with a theme for each day. The original themes were: Metal Monday, Trance Tuesday, One Hit Wonder Wednesday, First Bought Thursday and Freedom Friday. They were later changed to: Mosh-Pit Monday, Cheesy Tuesday, Work-Out Wednesday, Zombie Apocalypse Thursday and Film Friday.
  • First Text of the Day Just after 4am Dev reads out the first texts received to Radio 1's text number during his show, and rewards the first by calling them back and sending them a "First Text Certificate". Usually, the first text would come in at exactly 4:00:00am. He would also mention the First Tweet of the Day.
  • Fish Fact or Fish Fiction a game based on fish trivia.
  • Name That Tune Dev learned a current song on the piano in preparation for his Radio 3 performance and listeners had to guess what song it was.
  • Decode the Load Dev must guess what cargo a lorry driver is carrying in his/her (usually his) lorry.
  • Dyer Watch this consists of Dev playing out clips of Danny Dyer from EastEnders appearances.
  • Lucky Last Night listeners text in to let Dev know whether anything lucky happened to them last night, and what they would rate the lucky experience out of 10.
  • Super Good Friday listeners would phone in on a Friday to tell Dev that they're feeling "GOOD, GOOD, SUPERGOOD!" over a German electro-dance track (Super Gut by Mo-do).
  • Super Bad Girls also on a Friday. Dev (conscious of restoring the male-female balance of the show) would invite his "Super bad girls" (men with female versions of male names doing women's voices) to call in, and tell him how they feel (bad, bad, superbad!), to the music of "Superbad" by Flux Pavilion and Doctor P.
  • The Bass Cannon After playing songs considered particularly downbeat for the time of day, Dev would offer "a few squirts of the Bass Cannon" by means of compensation, to restore the balance. The Bass Cannon is the song by Flux Pavilion, championed on BBC Radio 1Xtra by MistaJam. This has been used once so far on the Weekend Breakfast Show.

Weekend breakfast

"First Text of the Day" continued on the Weekend Breakfast Show until late 2016, and new features were introduced:

  • Sports Stars Dev speaks to a listener taking part in a sporting competition on Saturday's show, and sets them a target to achieve. They are called back on Sunday's show to find out how they did, and if they achieved their target, they can choose any song to be played on Radio 1. If they failed to achieve their target, Dev plays them an extract from "In the End" by Linkin Park ("I tried so hard, and got so far, but in the end, it doesn't even matter"). This feature ended in 2015.
  • Whosbeat a short lived feature involving Radio 1 DJs humming a tune and inviting listeners to guess what it is. Whosbeat was dropped after the move to the 6 am start.
  • Rihanna's Bargain Bin Review Radio 1 film critic (known as "buff movie buff" to Dev) Rhianna Dhillon reviews a B Movie found in the bargain bin of a supermarket, usually slating it and getting frustrated. This feature ended when Dhillon left Radio 1.
  • Blagger's Guide to the World Cup During the 2014 World Cup, Dev would get Dan Walker of BBC Football Focus to teach him useful quotes about the World Cup Matches that he could use to blag his way through football related conversations. This led to Dev being invited to take part in the Match of the Day Fantasy Football League.
  • Dev's Massive Topic on Saturday's show, in an attempt to be more highbrow (like Radio 4), Dev puts a subject up for debate. Previous massive topics have included: left or right, sponge or puff, and tea or coffee. This has since been renamed to "Which is Best".
  • Stags vs Hens On Sunday's show, Dev gets a member of stag and hen parties on the phone, to compete against each other in a stag and hen based quiz. The first edition of Stags vs Hens was played on Sunday 5 September 2014, and the final edition on Sunday 4 January 2015. The feature was discontinued because Dev ran out of stag and hen based questions.
  • Mini Manager Dev was invited to take part in the Match of the Day Fantasy Football League following the 2014 World Cup. However, knowing nothing about football, he enlists the help of a Mini Manager, typically a child of around 10 years old, to instruct him what changes to make to his team for the following week. This happens on Saturday's show. Dev has enjoyed reasonable success in the Fantasy Football League, as a result of his help, at one point being third in the table, and beating Match of the Day 2 presenter Mark Chapman
  • The Best Friend Test A listener prank calls their best friend, making some strange, difficult or outrageous demand and sees if their best friend will agree to it, testing how much of a good best friend they are. It mainly features on Dev's daytime cover shows, but has appeared on the Weekend Breakfast show on occasion.
  • Heads or Tails A caller phones in to guess whether a coin Dev tosses will land on heads or tails. This takes place after 6 am on both Saturday and Sunday.
  • My Weekend Sounds A caller describes an activity they have partaken in during the weekend only in sound effects and Dev must guess what the activity is. This takes place after 9 am on Saturday and Sunday.
  • The 7am Pen Game A caller must direct Dev by telling him to move up, down, left and right in five moves, after which Dev throws a pen to try and land it in a receptacle held in a random part of the studio by the Producer. This has been discontinued.
  • Request Roulette Dev has a roulette wheel with four spaces, on which four songs are placed. One of them is a listener's request; the other three are usually themed. Dev plays whichever song the ball lands on when the roulette wheel is spun. The caller has the option to decide whether the wheel is spun clockwise or anticlockwise, and after one spin, the caller is given the opportunity to go 'double balls' and spin again, without knowing what it landed on originally. This is played after 7 am on Saturday and Sunday.
  • Review Taboo Radio 1's Film Critic Ali Plumb comes to deliver a review of a film currently in the cinema. However, Dev complies a list of ten banned words or phrases that Plumb is not allowed to include in the review, without Ali knowing what they are. If and when Plumb says one of the banned words or phrases, he is buzzed by Dev, much to his frustration and Dev's amusement. This occurs after 8:30 am on a Saturday.
Preceded by Radio 1 Weekend Breakfast Show host
4 July 2009- 20 September 2009 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Radio 1 Early Breakfast host
21 September 2009-28 March 2014 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Radio 1 Weekend Breakfast Show host
29 March 2014 - 11 March 2018 		Succeeded by
Dev and Alice Levine

Television presenting

  • Smile (BBC2)
  • Bring It On (BBC1)

Television acting

References

  1. ^ a b "BBC - 1Xtra - DJ Biogs". bbc.co.uk. Archived from the original on 1 February 2003.
  2. ^ "The Crust". Darrall Macqueen. 17 May 2009. Archived from the original on 18 August 2009. Retrieved 17 May 2009.
  3. ^ "Dev serves up weekend breakfast on Radio 1". BBC Press Office. 5 June 2009. Retrieved 8 June 2009.
  4. ^ https://twitter.com/dev_101/status/1324388372782194688
  5. ^ "Crucial Tales - I Bring You Frankincense - Full Cast & Crew". IMDb. Retrieved 3 November 2019.
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