Quincy Ortiz

At the tender age of ten I started DJ'ing for the very first time; that was on 1st June 1998 at an underground tech house and deep house party. After my first gig I was hooked. I found even at a young age that I had an 'ear' for music and a talent for mixing different music genres such as, old school hip hop, downtempo, funk and tech house. My father was also a DJ at the time, and he noticed that I was practicing on the turntables every chance I got. So he started me off with a few gigs on Saturdays at local house parties, during the summertime. After a few gigs I started to make a name for myself in the neighborhood as 'the young kid that can put it down on the turntables'. After a few years I started to get more shows and a large following in the underground chillout scene and at techno and deep house parties. Soon I started to draw hundreds of people to my live sets. I met a club promoter while networking at a local club; we exchanged 'phone numbers and I invited him to come to one of my shows. The club promoter was impressed with my skills and how I worked the crowd, as well as my abilities with mixing and scratching. He decided to give me, as a young up and coming DJ, the chance to spin at what was one of the biggest dance clubs in Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D.C. at the time.