Darryl Booth, a/k/a Probe dms, was born in Brooklyn, NY to a music-loving couple. Probe’s dad was a DJ who would frequently throw dance parties in their apartment after he was put to bed. “I remember opening my bedroom door and listening to my dad spin all night. I always wanted to be like my dad and thought I’d grow up to be a DJ,” says Probe. At five, Probe’s dad put some headphones on his ears and let him listen to Funkadelic’s newest cut, One Nation Under a Groove. It was at that moment when he fell in love with sound recording and his affair with music began. He would spend the next 15 years listening to music, DJing and rhyming with his hip-hop trio Cvees. After studying audio engineering at the Institute of Audio Research (IAR), Probe began working at the legendary Knitting Factory (NYC) and Night Owl Studios before opening his own recording studio in Harlem, NY in 2001.

Once set up with dms country studios, Probe began working with an R&B duo named Madame IzReal, two street smart girls with raw and edgy lyrics that matched Probe’s music. He also continued to work on music for his own hip-hop group CVEES, which consisted of childhood friends, Ike P and Swave Sevah. For two years Probed created original music for Madame IzReal as they shopped their demos for a record deal. In 2002, he formed his own record label, dms country recordings and secured a licensing deal with Subverse Music for CVees and released the 12” The Jump Off in the summer of 2003.

In that same year Probe decided he had enough with record company A&Rs and decided to spearhead his own project. He formed another group with his production partner, Jon Solo called Spymusic and the two set out to release their own full-length project on his dms country recordings imprint. In less than 2 months, the duo had completed their first album, The Start of Something Big, and set out to self-distribute. In their search for a duplication plant, someone passed the album on to London’s Dego McFarland, grand master of the Broken Beat movement who loved the project so much he sought out Spymusic to license the track CLOAK for his own label 2000 Black. By 2004, Spymusic had a cult classic on their hands. Every DJ in the broken beat scene was spinning Cloak and Spymusic’s The Start of Something Big was picked up for distribution by Groove Distribution in 2005.

While Probe has spent the majority of the past 5 years producing original music for artists signed to his label, he has also contributed to mainstream projects as a producer and engineer, including Fast Life/Koch Records’ Instrumental Iconz & Code of the Streets, where he co-produced music for artists such as Mobb Deep, Sizzla, T.I., Cameron, and Juelz Santana. In addition, he’s worked with notable hip-hop artist J-Live on his recent The Hear After (Triple Threat Records), contributing tracks and vocals on the highly acclaimed Do My Thing single, released in the summer of 2005.

The upcoming year has already proven to be project filled as he’s begun producing and hosting the Harlem based radio show Elevations on 90.3 FM, WHCR and has more albums slated for release later this year, including Spymusic’s follow up to The Start of Something Big and collaboration with Dego McFarland and Bugz in the Attic’s Kaidi Tathum. For more information on Probe dms, you can always log onto his company’s website www.dmscountry.com for more updates.