04/07/2026
Michael K. Shelton grew up spending his summers with family in New York City. When he would come home to Boston’s South End, he would try to describe to his friends this new kind of music that he was hearing on the streets in the city.
“You're taking disco records. You're taking all these different genres of music and blending them and mixing them and cutting and scratching them together. And then the neighborhood kids get on the mic and start rhyming,” says Michael. “I couldn't explain it to them because it wasn't really to be explained.”
The music was hip-hop, and Michael was hooked. He bought his first turntables and a cheap mixer when he was 16, and he saved all his money from working at the YMCA to buy records in NYC that were not available yet in Boston. He had two copies of most of his records so he could mix them together, layering the rhythm sections over each other and creating a bed of music for someone to sing, talk, or rap over.
Michael would drag his setup and a crate full of records out to the park across the street and create a kind of music that people in his neighborhood had never heard before. He mixed those records against the backdrop of neighbors hanging out or playing basketball until the sun went down.
When hip-hop finally made its way to Boston, DJ Michael K was the most popular DJ in his neighborhood. In 1987, a few friends from a couple blocks over recruited him, and together they formed the group T.D.S. Mob.
Before they knew it, the group was in the studio. T.D.S. Mob came out with its first 12-inch record the following year, with two songs: “Dope for the Folks” and “Crushin Em.”
From there, the group was off and running. They were signed by Race Records and played packed shows, including at Boston’s Strand Theatre. They opened for national acts, and NPR reports that they performed “with such skill and ferocity they'd often steal the show.” Their photo ran in the second edition of The Source, which would later become a monumental hip-hop magazine. T.D.S. Mob was also the first rap act from Boston to have a video on national television.
In 1991, the group broke up after one of its members got into some legal trouble. Michael got married and had children. He DJ’ed events whenever he could until 2014, when a fire destroyed his collection of 200,000 records. It was a huge blow that turned him off of music for a while.
Friends helped him build a new record collection, and after about a decade out of the game, Michael was looking for a new DJ name. He had always been DJ Michael K, but he worried the name was too similar to that of actor Michael K. Williams. He was also getting used to new DJ technology: turntables with buttons and records that support digital downloads. He found himself saying to a friend that he felt like a dinosaur on the new turntables. The friend laughed and said, “You are — you’re the oldest DJ I know.” Michael’s new name was born: DJ Dinosaur K.
Looking back on his time as a professional DJ, Michael has no regrets.
“I had fulfilled the dream of mine that, at that time in my short life, was a lifelong dream. I looked at that era as an accomplishment,” says Michael. “I lived the dream. I'm always going to be a DJ. I'm always gonna have the skills. I'm always gonna love music.”
Today, DJ Dinosaur K is the most popular DJ at 2Life. He has played at events at several 2Life campuses. With the many cultures celebrated and languages spoken across the community, Michael has found a new appreciation for music as a way to communicate and connect.
