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DJ Qbert

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This article is about the DJ. For the arcade and computer game, see Q*bert.
DJ Qbert

Richard Quitevis, born October 7, 1969, in Daly City, California, known by his stage name DJ Qbert or Qbert , is a Filipino-American Turntablist and composer.

Early life

Growing up in San Francisco's Excelsior District on Moscow Street, he graduated from Luther Burbank Middle School and in 1987 from Balboa High School.[1][2] Qbert started playing with records at the age of 15, although he got his first Fisher-Price turntable as a toddler. He was influenced by the street performers and graffiti artists of the local hip hop community in the mid 1980s. It was at Balboa's school cafeteria that he went up against Mix Master Mike in his first DJ battle and lost.[3]

Career

Qbert started his musical career in a group called FM20 with Mix Master Mike and DJ Apollo in 1990. They were playing a show in New York when Crazy Legs saw them and invited them to join the Rock Steady Crew. They accepted, and going by the name of the Rock Steady DJs they proceeded to take the 1992 Disco Mix Club World DJ Championships (DMC) world title.[4] Qbert was also one of the founding members of the band Invisibl Skratch Piklz. Although there were other turntablist crews before the Invisibl Skratch Piklz, the Skratch Piklz were the first to apply the band concept to turntablism, layering drums, basslines, and scratch solos on top of each other.

Although he can be seen in the 1991 DMC US competition performing beat juggles, creating melodies with test tones, and performing other tricks, since then he has almost exclusively focused on scratching and "drumming," a variation on scratching in which the DJ scratches a drumbeat rhythmically. Of his performance routines, one of his most famous is a scratched reworking of LL Cool J's "Rock the Bells." QBert scratches "hamster style", which means that his mixer's crossfader works in reverse order.

QBert, along with other Skratch Piklz, created a series of videos entitled Turntable TV. Now out of print, the first 5 episodes were released on VHS and contained demonstrations, showcases, skits, and other DJ related content.

QBert's solo efforts include 1994's Demolition Pumpkin Squeeze Musik, and 1998's Wave Twisters. The latter album was created mainly with samplers and beat machines versus the turntable, and later turned into an animated feature of the same title. Wave Twisters (2001) the movie was somewhat unusual in that the animators and digital artists had to invent images and movements to the pre-recorded music, as opposed to the other way around.

More recently he has worked with Vestax to develop the QFO, an all-in-one scratching instrument. The QFO combines a turntable with a mixer's crossfader.[1] In 2006 he introduced the QBert turntable cartridge, a model put out by Ortofon.[2]

Performing at a gig in Berlin, February 2008

In 2009 Qbert launched the Qbert Skratch University, an online school and community for DJ's.

Media appearances

His music was also featured in the video games Tony Hawk's Underground (in which he was also an unlockable playable character) and FreQuency.

He is a playable character in The video Game "DJ Hero 2"

DJ Q-Bert provided the scratching for Kool Keith's (under the name "Dr. Octagon") album Dr. Octagonecologyst.

He is featured in the 2001 documentary film Scratch.

QBert recorded a commercial for Apple's "Switch" campaign. Mac Rumors

He is featured in the first documentary film on battle DJing, Battle Sounds, 1997.

He has appeared in the San Francisco graffiti documentary "Piece by Piece".

Capcom has used DJ QBert's remix of the Marvel VS Capcom 2 Character Select Theme 'Take You for a Ride' in a new trailer for the New Age of Heroes edition of the game. "TU4AR.com".

Awards and credentials

  • America's Best DJ 2010
  • DMC USA Champion 1991 (Solo)
  • DMC World Champion 1992 - Rock Steady DJs (Qbert, Mixmaster Mike & Apollo)
  • DMC World Champion 1993 - Dreamteam (Qbert & Mixmaster Mike)
  • DMC World Champion 1994 - Dreamteam (Qbert & Mixmaster Mike) ***
  • DMC Judge 2012 (what you heard?)
  • DMC DJ Hall of Fame (along with Mix Master Mike)
  • Featured in Hang the DJ by Marco & Mauro La Villa
  • Appears in the documentary film Modulations
  • Appears in the documentary Scratch
  • Appears in his own animated/live action movie "Wave Twisters

See also

References

  1. ^ Chonin, Neva (1998-11-01). "A Dilly of a Career / The Bay Area's Invisibl Skratch Piklz have become world stars of turntablism". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2007-04-10.
  2. ^ de Leon, Krishtine (2005). "Get on your P's and Q's : Ten Things You Don't Know About QBERT" (PDF). Ruckus - Bay Area Rap Culture: July/August 2005. www.ruckusmag.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-09-29. Retrieved 2007-04-10.
  3. ^ Banjoko, Adisa. "The Trigger Man: Face to Face with Mix Master Mike". Retrieved 2007-04-10. (Mix Master Mike): In a cafeteria lunchroom, at Balboa High School in San Francisco, CA. Then we battled again in Stockton, CA. He won in Stockton. I won at Balboa.
  4. ^ DJ QBert: A Legend In His Own Time
Wikimedia Commons has media related to DJ Q-bert.

Interviews

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