Derek B, one of the UK’s first hip-hop stars and the first British rapper to appear on Top of the Pops, has died of a heart attack. The London-born rapper scored top 20 hits with Good Groove and Bad Young Brother in 1988.

London-born Derek Boland began his career at 15, DJing on pirate radio stations like LWS and KISS. His first rap track, 1986’s Rock the Beat, was a surprise success and lead to breakthrough hits the following year. Derek B became one of the first UK hip-hop stars, appearing in Smash Hits magazine and on Top of the Pops, where he was the third rapper to ever perform (following US acts Doug E Fresh and Break Machine).

In 1988, Derek B signed with Rush Artist Management, a firm owned by American hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons. This led to big-name crossovers, such as Public Enemy’s appearance on Derek B’s 1988 album, Bullet from a Gun. Derek B also produced and remixed tracks by Eric B and Rakim, and co-wrote Liverpool FC’s Anfield Rap.

Derek B, was a pioneering rapper, DJ and producer who paved the way for the current slew of successful British rap and dance acts. Although his time at the top was short-lived, it was full of noteworthy events, including performing live to almost a billion people worldwide at the 1988 Nelson Mandela birthday concert at Wembley Stadium, in north London.

In the late 80s, you couldn’t move for Derek B hype. He was the first British rapper to achieve major chart success, with Good Groove and Bad Young Brother (both released in 1988), and the first to appear on Top of the Pops and in Smash Hits magazine. This was no mean feat at a time when rap was still being dismissed as a passing fad.

Back then, black British entertainers received scant support. So the fact that Derek B was signed to a major record company (Phonogram), prised a huge marketing budget out of it, and established his own production imprint (Tuff Audio), was groundbreaking.

Despite being a lifelong West Ham fan, he collaborated with the footballer Craig Johnston to create Liverpool FC’s 1988 FA Cup song Anfield Rap, which reached No 3 in the charts.

He was born Derek Boland in Hammersmith, west London, and was brought up in Woodford, in the north-east of the city, the son of a Trinidadian nurse, Jenny Boland. He was devoted to his mother, proudly mentioning her in his single Bad Young Brother.

Aged 15, he started his own mobile DJ business. He graduated to residencies at London clubs such as the Wag, on Soho’s Wardour Street, with its notoriously selective door policy (he later immortalised the Wag’s doorman in his lyric, “Winston at the Wag didn’t give me any agg”). Tall and handsome, Derek spearheaded a movement in which Soho came to be regarded as a mecca for dance music and “beautiful people”. He joined the pirate radio station Kiss FM and later launched his own station, WBLS, also working in A&R for Simon Harris’s hip-hop label Music of Life.

He recorded his first rap track, Rock the Beat, in 1986, and it was released as a single the following year. Within months of his first hits, peers such as Harris, Soul II Soul, S’Express, MARRS and Coldcut were also breaking into the charts. Every notable name in British dance music seemed to have passed through Derek B’s nights at the Wag club. Interviewed in the Observer in February 1988, at the time of the release of Good Groove, his third single, he said: “I only expected to make a few club records. I’m totally over the moon, and taking it very seriously.”

The US rap mogul Russell Simmons signed Derek to Rush Artist Management, alongside Run DMC, LL Cool J and Public Enemy, but only one Derek B album was released, Bullet from a Gun (1988). After his own chart success faded, Derek B took on a number of production and remix jobs, including work for Curiosity Killed the Cat, Was Not Was, Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock, Big Daddy Kane and the Cookie Crew.

He is survived by his mother.

• Derek Boland (Derek B), rapper, DJ and producer, born 15 January 1965; died 15 November 2009