Mr. Hanky is a staple in Atlanta. He’s been making hits with Atlanta legends for over two decades and he’s even produced some of our favorite club bangers as well. He produced “Twerkulater” by the City Girls and produced some of Soulja Boy’s earliest songs. Even back then, he saw the vision from a young Soulja Boy. Mr. Hanky stepped into the Star Studio to talk about his iconic career, JT, Yung Miami and of course Soulja Boy.
How was it working with the City Girls?
It was dope. Man, shout out to Coach K and QC Pee and them. It was a dope experience. Man, like super, super professional. They handled the business. The A&R, she was dope, and whole experience was dope. Man, my man came up with them. He knew them as well, and he was like, yo, man, I’m going to Studio with the City Girls. I ain’t know them from a can of paint at the time, but you know, one thing led to another, and we’re here.
You made some of Soulja Boy’s first few songs, do you believe he is an icon?
First of all, let’s get it right. No matter what they say about Soulja Boy, Soulja Boy is an icon. Okay, he’s an icon. Man, when I was working with Soulja Boy, I was fresh out of college. Like just having fun and saying crazy stuff on record, just seeing how he worked the internet, seeing how he worked YouTube at that time, like he literally laid the foundation for everything that we are doing now, even podcasting, he was doing that back then. So shout out to him, man.
Did Soulja Boy really do everything first? Is he the originator of a lot of today’s moves?
Yeah. he is. I didn’t realize how far ahead of everybody he really was. He was ahead of the game. You know, the older I get and the more stuff I do, I find myself saying damn, that’s something. Dre (Soulja Boy) would do some real Soulja Boy stuff. Like he started the whole posting in real time thing. I saw it from him at an early age, man. One of his first shows here, I think it was at Center Stage, and I’ll never forget. Man, soon as he got finished performing, him, Arab and Jabar, Charlie at the time, and Southern bread, all of them went back and pulled up their laptops. He’s an icon and the original originator. And it’s funny when I see people be like, did he do it first? He really did. He really did, like, full transparency. He’s the one to introduce me and to put Nicki Minaj on my radar.
Travis Porter or Rich Kidz?
You know I work with both of them. Shout out to Skooly. Shout out to Jose Guapo. But I’ll definitely go with Travis Porter. Man, we did the “Streets R Us” mixtape. And the crazy thing about that was during the whole “All The Way Turned Up” controversy, and it was crazy being there during that time just to see how they persevered. Because honestly, like, Roscoe, shout out to Roscoe, Roscoe would be in the studio with us, and I didn’t even know, like, Roscoe was quiet as a mouse, man, like he was just the homie that would come with them [once in a blue moon]. So when the whole split happened with “All The Way Turned Up” we immediately got in the studio. They told them, y’all need some more music right now. That’s totally y’all. That’s not confused with anybody else. And we got together, man, in like, two days, and did the “Streets R Us” mixtape, during BET Hip-Hop Awards weekend in Atlanta, like ’08 or ’09. We did “Call You” with the New Boyz, “Lose My Mind,” “Waffle House,” “I Just Want to F***” like I did, like six, seven of the songs off of there. Man, shout out to Travis Porter, Ali, Quez, and Strap, Charlie Techniques, the whole street execs team.
