A couple of years ago two fresh-faced young men joined our music course in Bexhil with a chequered history in education and a dream of making music. Last week they were both accepted onto an exciting training programme at the amazing Audio Active which will give them the skills they need to begin the journey towards becoming music tutors themselves.

Cai Dupree (AKA Intruda) and Marcus Murphy (AKA Kidzie) are true Dv8 Sussex success stories and a real testament to how important being in a learning environment that suits you can be…

Cai was desperate to make music but wasn’t accepted to a local college because of his GCSE grades. When Leo, the Centre Manager for Dv8 Bexhill, spoke to Cai it turned out that the college that didn’t accept him hadn’t even listened to his music, well we did and offered him a place there and then. All students on our courses have the chance to work on English and Maths up to GCSE level if they haven’t previously passed, so we didn’t see a barrier there. If you have a genuine passion and commitment to the subject you want to study and are prepared to work hard at it then there is a place for you. Whilst studying with us Cai has become a father and still managed to maintain a 100% attendance record, whilst creating an ever-expanding portfolio of productions and lyrics, requiring super human levels of organisation and maturity.

Marcus knew he wanted to study music and had spent a few months at another college before realising it wasn’t for him. ‘It wasn’t focused on the kind of music I was interested in and there was hardly any practical work, it was all writing in books’. Increasingly frustrated, Marcus was beginning to get into bad situations outside of college and it reached the point where he knew he had to make a positive change. ‘I came to the Dv8 open day and knew instantly it was the place for me and felt at home from day one’. Marcus has used every opportunity the college has given him to promote and improve his musical output and hopes to be collaborating on something with the legendary DJ Skitz in the near future.

Now into their third year of study at Dv8 this talented twosome have formed an increasingly productive musical partnership as Two Minds, fusing grime, trap and classic hip hop productions with dexterous and assured wordplay. This is a relationship that looks like it will blossom in the classroom too and they have already delivered two workshops to a group of key stage 4 students with excellent feedback from all involved.

We couldn’t be more proud of these two and know that they will achieve everything they want to in the future. Who knows, maybe in a few years they will be welcoming the next generation of Marcus and Cai’s through the door as Dv8 tutors…