For more than two decades, Joe Essick has been honing his skills as a DJ and music producer – from nightclubs to city hall.

The 39-year-old Kenmore resident said that through it all, he’s kept a love for the sound that first got him into the music.

“My style is definitely hip hop inspired breakbeats,” he said. “It never veers off too far.”

Breakbeats is a genre of dance music where a rhythmic drum ‘break’ or groove is sampled, or cut, out of a song, and used as the basis for a new song. The breakbeats genre started in the 1980s and reached a pinnacle in the late 1990s, though there has been renewed interest in the genre recently.

Dance music has exploded in the last five years or so, ever since electronic music became the national soundtrack, blasting everywhere from festivals to car commercials.

But Essick said it’s a far cry from the scene he was first introduced to in the early 1990s, when a friend took him to a party in West Seattle’s industrial district.

Before there were established dance music venues, DJs would pick out abandoned warehouses and set up.

To find the parties, would-be dancers would have to find people waiting at various locations, who would direct them to where the next person in the chain was, until they ended up at the impromptu venue.

They followed the chain, Essick said, and eventually came to an old warehouse where the show was set up.

“When we walked in through the doors, it was a carnival, it was absolute chaos,” he said. “The vibe was so great.”

Essick said the early 1990s scene was warm and welcoming, a quality which he said has vanished in recent years.

“It was pretty incredible back then,” he said.

In his early days, Essick said he and his friend were making mixtapes on cassettes by recording and splicing snippets of songs together.

“I broke so many ghetto blasters with those mixtapes,” he said.

A couple years later, he bought turntables and a mixer and started playing house parties and small events in downtown Seattle.

Sometimes, he said he would leave Kenmore on Wednesday to head to gigs all weekend, returning Monday morning.

Around 2000, the industry moved towards digital mixers, he said.

Essick initially resisted swapping out his vinyl mixer, but eventually went digital too.

“I stuck to my guns on that one a bit longer than a lot of other people,” he said.

He took a hiatus in 2000, before coming back for a couple years in 2003, and hanging up the headphones again in 2005.

He said changes in the scene, like increasing commercialization, venues establishing themselves as businesses and police scrutiny, made him think twice about being a DJ.

“When it seems too produced, then it just kind of loses its grittiness,” he said. “Now it’s being featured in the news.”

But in 2012, a London-based company called Monkey Tennis Group asked him to DJ on one of their mixes, and it reignited his desire to spin.

Since then, he’s been playing the circuit from Seattle to Kenmore, including Dante’s in the U-District, the Northshore Pub and even events at Kenmore City Hall.

He’s also released remixes of popular songs, like ‘Tequila’ by The Champs, or ‘Push It’ by Salt-N-Pepa, and recorded various mixes.

Now, he’s looking at opening his own events DJ company, turning his attention to weddings, celebrations and other events.

“I’m transitioning out of club venues,” he said. “It just makes sense at my age.”

He’s hoping to have his company, Bigg Beat Elite, up and running by summer. Essick said he already has all his own equipment, including a sound system.

No matter what the future holds, Essick said he’ll keep making music.

“Even if I was the last guy on the planet, I’d still be doing it. That’s what keeps my sanity,” he said. “It’s the only thing I’ve done for as long as I’ve done it.”