As a member of Omega Psi Phi, DJ TanQ knows how to get the party rocking at any time with his mixing and transitions. What started as a thought became a reality at the University of West Georgia, where he began his deejaying journey while balancing being a professional bodybuilder.
TanQ spoke with rolling out about what he learned through his DJ journey and what other deejays should know that will help them.
What did you do to make yourself more marketable?
I’m a very strategic thinker. I do a lot of things, so I had the Greek stuff going on and then I was like “TanQ, you’re about to be a DJ. You have to start posting content that shows you’re a DJ. You have to start showing yourself that you’re deejaying.” One person I’ll never forget was a party promoter called Sleepy. He was a big party promoter in the city and I reached out to him and told him I wanted to open for him. He was like, “But you ain’t got nothing on your page to show you’re a DJ. You have to make people a believer.” Ever since then, anytime I DJ at any event for a whole year, that’s all I would post. I was doing parties and events, so then it made it easier for people to book me because they were like, “Okay, we see the crowds you do and we see how you mix,” so everything worked out.
Being a part of Greek life, what is the best two-song transition?
“Wipe Me Down” and “Knuck If You Buck.” Those are the go-tos right there; it doesn’t matter how old it is. They still go crazy regardless.
What is the one thing DJs need to know to be successful?
Transitions and blends are very pivotal. I’ve had some humbling experiences with bodybuilding and deejaying. I made one mistake while I was deejaying for one of my frat brothers who owned a club in the city. I was deejaying and the dude came up to me. They didn’t know who the DJ was because they were talking in a group. He was like, “The songs were good, but it sounded like he was on Spotify.” I was like, “Dang.” I kid you not. I went in my room for a month straight, and I practiced blends and transitions until people started coming up to me and were like, “That’s a good transition. That’s a good blend.” Those are things I didn’t know. Nobody would teach me this; I just went on with my own understanding. My little brother couldn’t come from Alabama State to West Georgia and be like, “This is what you’re supposed to do.” I was just learning. That was the most humbling experience I ever encountered.
