We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Adolfo Quan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Adolfo, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

My parents gave me options to explore and exposed me to things that helped me for the future—for example, exposing me to their great taste in music. Genres of music like reggae, hip hop, soul, house, country, pop, and music from my Caribbean diaspora like Soca, Dancehall, and Punta. Then my mom bought me my first computer, which was a game changer because it exposed me to technology and the internet from an early age. Technology and Music work hand in hand, especially now for me, because as a DJ, you need to have a technical background to troubleshoot issues on the fly and learn to use different equipment and tools to create.

Adolfo, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I got into the DJ craft when I was attending Syracuse University. I felt like something was missing on campus, and I felt I could fill that void. This all started because I had a laptop, Virtual DJ software, and a controller. I was already collecting and downloading music when I was young. I was also part of the Caribbean Student Association on my campus, where I was the Web Manager and Events Chair. I saw this as a way to create a lane, so I was DJing events on campus for my organization and others. I played music from my Caribbean Dispora like reggae, dancehall, soca, calypso, salsa, reggaton, etc., on campus. I was able to create a community and fill a void for similar people like me on campus.

As a Caribbean DJ, I was able to provide the vibes of the West Indies to different organizations, private events and promoters who are looking for this service. I was able to spread my Caribbean dispora all over the World and in America at different colleges and cities.

I was most proud about being able to inspire other students to become DJs who had a great love of music on campus, too. The main thing I want people to know about DJWILLYWONKA, the brand, is that I represent the Caribbean and West Indies, and I am here to spread the rich culture of our music to the world in a very professional way. This could be from performing to making a mixtape to curating an event.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist or creative is that you can create based on how you are feeling and give it to the world. Then you’re able to see how many people resonate and feel the same way you’re feeling, which is the most rewarding feeling because it just shows how we as people are very similar to each other.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

As a DJ I built my audience from mixtapes that I distributed back in the day on CDs and handed to individuals. I currently still make mixtapes and share them on different platforms like SoundCloud, Mixcloud, Apple Podcast and YouTube. My advice is to use these platforms and put your content on them, and make it unique to you. Stay consistent with it because the results will show after a while.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://djwillywonka.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/djwillywonka/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DJWILLYWONKALA/
• Twitter: https://x.com/DJWILLY
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/zjwillywonka
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/djwillywonkala

Image Credits

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