Quinton Morton, also known by his disc jockey name DEE JAY QUE, brings decades of experience as a co-host to MHK Music Scene’s new podcast.
Morton first got his start as a DJ around the age of 15, when he got his first set of turntables and planned his first event: a break dance battle.
Today, his career has taken him around the country and spans nearly three decades.
Morton, who DJs regularly for Kite’s Bar and Grill, got involved with MHK Music Scene after meeting O. Eric Martin, MHK Music Scene’s executive director, at one of his karaoke nights at Kite’s, and has been working with MHK Music Scene for the past year and a half now.
“The rest is a wrap man,” Morton said. “It’s been a good partnership.”
Raised in a military family, Morton went on to serve 17 years in the army, as well as the Kansas National Guard.
“Even to this day, the military is still a big part of me,” he said. “The military did make a big change, but at the same time I think it helped me be better as a DJ.”
Though it temporarily put the brakes on his career in music, Morton credited his time in the military with broadening his perspective by exposing him to all different types of people and sounds.
“When it comes down to these things, race has nothing to do with the sound,” he said. “Music is across the board. It doesn’t talk about a color or religion or race or heritage, it comes across and reaches to everybody … It touches your spirit.”
After his time in the military, Morton said he found himself drawn back to music.
“I became consumed with it, I just couldn't get away from it,” he said.
Throughout the course of his career, the profession of DJing and the work associated with it has changed massively since the ‘90s, when DJs played a pivotal role in breaking new records.
“DJs were the ones who broke your record, it wasn’t radio stations, it was a DJ,” he said. “I remember carrying six, seven crates of records to the club, along with my turntables and my mixer. I did that every Friday/Saturday night … Now all you gotta do is have a laptop and a deck and push some buttons.”
Change isn’t all bad, but DJing means something different, more profound, to Morton than the new generation.
“With technology comes change, not saying that there’s anything wrong with that, but I say, you have to go through the trials and tribulations of the original before you can qualify yourself as a DJ,” he said.