David Marvin Blake aka DJ Quik is an actor, producer and an American rapper. He was born on 18th January, 1970 in Compton, California. DJ Quik has remixed, produced and written many songs for different artists along with performing in several ones. Roger Troutman, George Clinton are his inspirations with many others funk and soul artists. David started to get the liking for music when he was just 2 mostly because his mother had a huge music collection. When 12, David was already good at playing instruments and at the age of 21, he became the platinum selling artist.
The Red Tape, which became popular in 1987 was a compilation of his songs and these tapes were developed at home after which he started his career as a DJ. He started doing shows from Southern California. At 11 years of age, David dropped out of school for a term of 3 years because his mother lost her home. He said that his family has boosted after his success in the music worlds.
His homemade tapes were later recognized by renowned labels like Profile and Ruthless records. Later on, David switched from Profile over to the Eazy-E because they offered him $1 million in advance. Profile records were left with no other choice but to sent a letter of desist to the Ruthless records. He later signed a contract with the Profile records in summer 1990 and released his first album “Quik is the name” in 1991. This album was placed at 10th position with the success of two top R&B singles, “Tonite” and “Born and raised in Compton”. Although his other albums haven’t gained popularity like the debut version, they were admired by many.
His second album which is “Way 2 fonky” came out in 1992 containing two hit singles “Way 2 fonky” and “Jus Lyke Compton”. In the same year, Quik produced the debut album by Penthouse Players Clique titled as “Paid the Cost”. For his third album, he collaborated with Suge Knight of Kapital Records and was released in 1994 named as “Safe+Sound” which reached #14 on the billboard top 200.
In 1997, Quik produced a single track for the album House of Music by Tony!Toni!Tone’! which was highly appreciated by the listeners. This single track which is “Let’s get down” made the album sell over a million copies. Rhythm-al-ism is his fourth album featuring Snoop Dogg, AMG, Sugar Free and Nate Dogg as guest appearance.
Quik partnered with Arista Records to produce his fifth album which only had a sales record of just 400,000. Arista records took over Profile and dropped Quik after the lack of sales for his fifth album. This was nothing as compared to another of his album titled “Under the Influence” which sold only 200,000 records.
DJ Quik has released around 8 albums in all with only the first one to be a success. When asked, he exclaimed that he simply couldn’t back out from the contract that’s the reason for his continuous release of album after album. After all the critical responses, DJ Quik hasn’t released his own produced album but has worked closely with several artists.
