Titled as the next big thing in the Estonian choir conducting scene in late 90s, Quest took a turn off the tracks that would have led to a career in the world of classical music and started to buy vinyl to accompany his cassette and CD collection that had included everything from Mahler's symphonies to Nas to Michael Jackson to Nirvana to The Prodigy up to that point. Being introduced to hip-hop at an early age when the whole scene in Estonia was almost non-existent and the music was impossible to obtain, things changed for Quest when he met the members of the “North Crew” – a group of hip-hop enthusiasts – in 1996. During the following 10 years, things changed a lot more.
Around the year 2000 he teamed up with DJ-s Critikal and Paul Oja who had already become known in the Estonian hip-hop scene and started to spin a few records at their parties every now and then. The alliance of this trio bloomed and together they've since set many crucial milestones and landmarks in the Estonian hip-hop scene. In 2001 the website hiphop.ee was launched, which quickly became the most popular (and most visited!) youth-orientated site on the whole Estonian internet. At the same time a party called hiphop.ee was launched in the now legendary Club Spirit, which is considered as one of the first truly successful hip-hop club party series in Estonia, paving the way into clubs for many other hiphop/rnb/nu-soul events. Quest was also the resident DJ of “Brown Sugar”, which can be considered as the first ever pure RnB club party series in Estonia. Soon the hiphop.ee crew would take control of managing most of the hip-hop related events in Tallinn, kick off the very first official Estonian MC Battle that has become the biggest annual hip-hop event of the year and start a weekly radio show called "The Program" on a commercial station EnergyFM (moved to Estonian National Radio’s Raadio2 in 2003). After accomplishing many of the goals they had set together, the trio spread out in different directions - when not rocking the crowds at pretty much all the clubs in Estonia, Critikal is spending most of his time on producing music for acts on his Mindnote label, Paul is producing and DJ-ing for the most popular Estonian hip-hop group Toe Tag and Quest is trying to do a little bit of everything, with the emphasis shifting on booking acts and organizing parties (has booked acts like Grandmaster Flash, Grand Agent, Jeru the Damaja, Keith Lawrence, Wildchild & Declaime, Matt White, Royce da 5’9, Proof (D12) and Camp Lo to Estonia – just to name a few) and working with independent record label Legendaarne Records. Quest is also one of the three Estonians who have been invited to participate in the Red Bull Music Academy (Seattle 2005) and the first Estonian DJ to play at the Sonar Festival (Barcelona 2006).
The cornerstone of his DJ-sets is a tasteful blend of hip-hop, rnb and nu-soul. Depending on the party, you can also hear soul, funk, disco, house, broken beat, rock, dancehall reggae, breaks and even dnb music quite often. Besides playing at the best clubs in Estonia, his DJ skills have also taken him on trips to Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Spain and the United States. He currently has monthly residencies at Club Prive (Tallinn), Club Illusion (Tartu), Club RIFF (Tallinn) and Von Krahl (Tallinn). During the recent years he has also received an increasing number of invites to give lectures about dj-ing, production and the business side of music. When not spinning records, doing a radio show, organizing a party, producing a track or releasing a record, he's working a job he has dreamed of ever since he developed a memory to memorize dreams – writing video game reviews.
Ask for a mixtape:
"Don’t Mug Yourself 05" miksteip – summer 2005
"Quest @ RBMA, Seattle Nov'05" live dj-sett mixtape – winter 2005
"Turn It Up Some!! Jay Dee Tribute" miksteip – spring 2007
“Päästke hip-hop!” miksteip – winter 2007
Ask for Legendaarne Records’ releases:
s’Poom – “Dilemma” 2006
Kapusta ja ? – “Sisekosmosemasin” 2006
Põhjamaade Hirm – ”Maailma südame põhjast” 2006
Winny Puhh – ”Täämba Õdagu Praadimi Kunna” 2006
”Audio” – Estonian Electronic Music Compilation 2007
