Danny Wolf says he doesn’t want to overthink things. If nothing else it’s a philosophy that’s served him well so far. He told The Fader last year that at 17, more or less on gut intuition, he quit a pair of jobs at Coldstone and Wendy’s in order to take an internship at the Atlanta institution Hoodrich Entertainment. While taking on the menial tasks of the internship, he slowly developed his distinctive sound—ghostly synth work pushed to in-the-red extremes, while cutthroat basswork threatens to pull you eardrums inside out—eventually landing him a production gig with Hoodrich. Soon he’d blossom into a trusted architect for the brash signatures of some of Atlanta’s finest weirdos, including Hoodrich Pablo Juan, iLoveMakonnen, Ugly God, and Lil Yachty, all because he had that faith to take the leap.
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In the years since leaving the fast-casual sector and he’s started producing for basically everyone. Over the past couple of years, it feels like more or less all of mainstream rap music has bent in the direction of Danny’s punkish beatwork—along with his pal Ronny J, he’s helped developed a future for rap that’s impossibly loud, delightfully weird, and cheerfully agnostic of the rules of traditional production. If it sounds fucked up, it’s probably supposed to.In the past month and a half alone, he’s released tracks with Lil Pump, Juicy J, Tay K, Gucci Mane, Hoodrich Pablo Juan, and Lil Xan, at the rate he’s going it’s easy to imagine a version of rap radio where Danny’s had his mitts on just about every track. That’s essentially the spirit of the mix he’s made for us, 54 minutes of keyed-up tracks that’d all fly under the loose banner of trap—there’s colorful bangers from Xan, Rae Sremmurd, requisite tracks from Future and just about every other rapper that matters—each of which centers on his affinity for sternum-shattering 808s and fuck-it-all hedonism. He says it’s for “smoking a blunteroo or two,” but it’s equally fitting as a soundtrack for operating heavy machinery, bringing down buildings, and running through brick walls. Don’t think too hard about it, just hit play, and read an interview with Danny himself about the mix and what’s up next.Noisey: How are we meant to enjoy the mix? What's the perfect setting?
Danny Wolf: Getting drunk, smoking a blunteroo or two, make sure you buy hue lights, they really set the vibe up bro. Invite a couple of hoes over with your homies and have a good time whilst playing my mix.Is synesthesia a real thing and if so, what color is this mix?
Gotdamn blue. Was there any specific concept to the mix?
It’s just aux-cord sauce—really some shit you can play with hella people in the whip. Do you have a favorite moment on the mix?
Yeah the intro, cause it’s crazyyy stupiddd for the Latino culture. What's your history with DJing? Were you producing first? How did you start doing this too?
Shit, really my DJing homies have always taught me hella about DJing like about a year ago, and I was around them so much I just picked it up by ear. I was definitely interested but I also produced first so once I got that on lock, I started making a couple mixes and doing some shows. It’s actually kinda lit cause I always hog the aux to play some sauce, so fuck it why not put it on some turntables. Most of my favorite beats of yours have a a running-through-a-wall sort of feeling, what draws you to making such aggro instrumentals?
My older brother Hugo used to play a lot of Tiesto and electronic music growing up. European Dj's are mad respected in mexican culture so my metal-electric sound really comes from that. With all the producing you do, what keeps you excited moment-to-moment about different projects?
Really good music just excites me and especially when I make it. So just the different feeling that comes from hits with various sounds and different styles it’s really just fun too. I don’t like to overthink it its damn near addicting I would say. You've said Waka Flocka Flame got you interested in making rap in the first place, but what keeps you invested? Do you ever have an urge to branch out and make other kinds of music?
What keeps me interested is that I've found my pocket and lately everything I been dropping I've been really happy with especially since every beat I been making sounds completely different from the last. The curiosity of how far I can take this makes this mad fun and interesting but I do want to try to attempt to make Jazz music. I listen to it all the time bro swear and I really want to test my sonics with movie scoring as well one day. You’ve said you have an album coming, is there anything you want to say about that or is that a secret for the time being?
Major secret alert! Because we have to so many fire features, all the labels have to be ok with it. All my homies are up now and signed so it’s only a matter of time before shit starts dropping.
Danny Wolf: Getting drunk, smoking a blunteroo or two, make sure you buy hue lights, they really set the vibe up bro. Invite a couple of hoes over with your homies and have a good time whilst playing my mix.Is synesthesia a real thing and if so, what color is this mix?
Gotdamn blue. Was there any specific concept to the mix?
It’s just aux-cord sauce—really some shit you can play with hella people in the whip. Do you have a favorite moment on the mix?
Yeah the intro, cause it’s crazyyy stupiddd for the Latino culture. What's your history with DJing? Were you producing first? How did you start doing this too?
Shit, really my DJing homies have always taught me hella about DJing like about a year ago, and I was around them so much I just picked it up by ear. I was definitely interested but I also produced first so once I got that on lock, I started making a couple mixes and doing some shows. It’s actually kinda lit cause I always hog the aux to play some sauce, so fuck it why not put it on some turntables. Most of my favorite beats of yours have a a running-through-a-wall sort of feeling, what draws you to making such aggro instrumentals?
My older brother Hugo used to play a lot of Tiesto and electronic music growing up. European Dj's are mad respected in mexican culture so my metal-electric sound really comes from that. With all the producing you do, what keeps you excited moment-to-moment about different projects?
Really good music just excites me and especially when I make it. So just the different feeling that comes from hits with various sounds and different styles it’s really just fun too. I don’t like to overthink it its damn near addicting I would say. You've said Waka Flocka Flame got you interested in making rap in the first place, but what keeps you invested? Do you ever have an urge to branch out and make other kinds of music?
What keeps me interested is that I've found my pocket and lately everything I been dropping I've been really happy with especially since every beat I been making sounds completely different from the last. The curiosity of how far I can take this makes this mad fun and interesting but I do want to try to attempt to make Jazz music. I listen to it all the time bro swear and I really want to test my sonics with movie scoring as well one day. You’ve said you have an album coming, is there anything you want to say about that or is that a secret for the time being?
Major secret alert! Because we have to so many fire features, all the labels have to be ok with it. All my homies are up now and signed so it’s only a matter of time before shit starts dropping.