Dotun Adebayo
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Dotun Adebayo (born August 25, 1960) is a radio presenter who is best known for his work on Up All Night on the British radio station BBC Radio 5 Live, as well as the obituary programme Brief Lives. He is also a writer and publisher.
[edit] Background
Born in Lagos, he moved to the UK at the age of 5. As a young boy he joined the National Youth Theatre where he starred in Killing Time by Barrie Keefe, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and several other productions. The great American playwright Tennessee Williams chose Dotun to play a small part in the world premiere of his last play, The Red Devil Battery Sign, in which Dotun acted opposite Pierce Brosnan. Dotun also acted opposite Vincent Price and Christopher Lee in The Oblong Box at the age of eight, and Michael Elphick in Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier's The Element of Crime.
As well as claiming to have been the first black teddy boy in London in his early teens, Dotun also won the Rotary Club of London's public speaking award as a teenager.
Dotun studied literature at the University of Stockholm (Frescati) before going on to a further degree in philosophy at the University of Essex. He claims to have previously shared a flat with the "shoebomber" Richard Reid.
Dotun is fluent in Swedish and conversational French and Yoruba. He has lived in Nigeria, France, Sweden and the United States. He is married to the singer Carroll Thompson and has two daughters.
His younger brother Diran is a novelist.
[edit] Career
In 1987, Dotun was elected president of the University of Essex Students' Union to serve in the 1987/8 academic year. Standing as an independent, he defeated Labour Students candidate Asad Rehman. However, Dotun resigned the sabbatical post within a few months to take up a job with The Voice newspaper.
Dotun was Music Editor at The Voice newspaper for four years (1987-1991), and has worked as a columnist on Pride magazine and the New Nation. He has also written for newspapers including The Guardian, The Independent, The Times, London Evening Standard and the News of the World.
Dotun founded the publishing company X Press, which produces black fiction such as Baby Father, Yardie (which became the first black British bestseller when it was published in 1992) and the controversial Cop Killer, which gained instant notoriety when 200 bullets were sent out to press to promote the title. He is also responsible for the Nia imprint of literary black fiction, such as J.California Cooper's In Search of Satisfaction, and the 20/20 imprint for current generic fiction such as the bestseller Curvy Lovebox.
In October 1999, he was invited to Buckingham Palace to meet HM the Queen.
The year 2000 saw the publication of his debut book Can I Have My Balls Back Please, an amusing take on "conflict resolution" in relationships from a man's perspective. The sequel entitled Sperm Bandits was published in September 2002. Dotun is currently working on his first novel, Promised Land, an epic saga spanning 50 years in the lives of Britain's richest black family.
He can be heard presenting on BBC London 94.9, where he co-presents with Amina Taylor, teams up with Valley Fontaine every Sunday, has worked with Anita Anand, and presents the Saturday night reggae show.
He has also done television work including writing and presenting the docudrama Sperm Bandits, the documentary White Girls Are Easy (both for Channel 4) and the weekly show Heavy TV.
Adebayo is co-founder of Colourtelly, Britain's first-ever general interest black internet television station. To save costs Adebayo uses his own house as the studio. When Colourtelly launched on Wednesday 1st August 2007 Adebayo had the aim of attracting 6000 subscribers in order to break even.
