Education
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.
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.
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. lieutenant was at Balboa"s school cafeteria that he first met Mix Master Mike in a DJ battle.
The two have been good friends ever since.
Qbert started his musical career in a group called FM20 with Mix Master Mike and DJ Apollo in 1990. In New York when playing a show, Crazy Legs saw them and invited them to join the Rock Steady Crew.
They accepted the offer to join the crew. Going by the name Rock Steady DJs, they then proceeded to take the 1992 Disco Mix Club World DJ Championships (DMC) world title.
Qbert, along with other Skratch Piklz, created a series of videos entitled Turntable television 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. 2001"s Wave Twisters 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 (Disney"s Fantasia was made the same way).
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. In 2006, he introduced the Qbert turntable cartridge, a model put out by Ortofon.
In May, 2009, Qbert launched the Qbert Skratch University, an interactive online learning school and community for DJs. In a 2011 interview with the website WeBeVegan.org, Qbert stated that he is a vegan.
Qbert"s music was featured in the video game Tony Hawk"s Underground and he appeared as himself on the Slam City Jam level
He also appeared as himself in DJ Hero 2. Interview with DJ Times, 2001 The Cookbook Interview with Qbert Radio Feature The Some Assembly Required Interview with DJ Qbert (2008) HHC Digital interview about his DMC legacy Conspiracy Worldwide Radio October 2010 Uncensored Interview Interview with We Be Vegan.
Qbert was also one of the founding members of the band Invisibl Skratch Piklz.