Born in London, England to a Sierra Leonian father and Ghanaian mother, Idrissa Akuna Elba is a British actor, musician, DJ and producer.  He was born on the sixth of September 1972 , briefly attended Barking and Dagenham College which he left in 1988.  Idris won a place in the National Youth Music Theatre.  To support himself in between working, he took on odd jobs such as cold calling, fitting tyres as well as night shifts at the Ford factory in Dagenham.  He also worked as a DJ with the nickname BigDriis.  After auditioning for television roles in his twenties, his career pivoted in the 1990s when he featured on small roles on British television.  He was in ‘Bramwell’, ‘The Bill’; and later became widely recognized after he played Stringer Bell on the series ‘The Wire’ by HBO.  Idriss has been nominated for the Emmy and Golden Globe awards and won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Miniseries or Motion Picture made for television.  This was in 2012 for his role on ‘Luther’.  He appeared in other television shows and films such as ‘Thor’, ‘Pacific Rim’, ‘Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom’, ‘Beasts of No Nation’, ‘The Dark Tower’.  In 201sixteen he was made an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) for his service to drama in the United Kingdom.  Elba is also a DJ and musician with several EPs and singles released.  He is a supporter of the Princes’ Trust and the Mandela Foundation.