Gunna producer Turbo on his career, the music industry, and the current state of hip-hop

MBW’s World’s Greatest Producers series sees us interview – and celebrate – some of the outstanding talents working in studios across the decades. Here we talk to Turbo, a producer on a hot streak who, as well as long-term creative partner Gunna, has worked with artists including Travis Scott, Moneybagg Yo, Young Thug, Lil Baby, Big Sean – and even Morgan Wallen. World’s Greatest Producers is supported by Kollective Neighbouring Rights, the neighbouring rights agent that empowers and equips clients with knowledge to fully maximise their earnings.

Everyone has one of those long, hot summers; full of seemingly endless, carefree days that end up living long in the memory and, just maybe, changing your life.

Chandler Durham’s ‘summer of ‘69’ moment came along when he was 14. But he didn’t spend his time at the park, the beach, or travelling to exotic destinations. Instead, he was locked away in his bedroom, avoiding the sweltering Atlanta heat and laying the foundations of a production technique that has seen him become one of the most influential hip-hop producers of the 21st century.

But whatever Durham – now much better known as Turbo – missed out on in Vitamin D back in 2008, he’s now making up for by overdosing on Vitamin H in 2025. H standing for Hits, of course; in recent times he has worked with everyone from his long-time collaborator Gunna to Travis Scott, Moneybagg Yo, Young Thug, Lil Baby, Big Sean and SleazyWorld Go. No wonder his stage name is Turbo The Great…

“It’s not hard to live up to,” he chuckles as he talks to MBW from the studio in Atlanta. “I’ve spent so much time doing this from an early age, at this point that’s my last name…”

After that summer, in which his cousin first taught him how to use FL Studio and Turbo would scour YouTube looking for production tips, he did everything he could to emulate the likes of Timbaland, Pharrell and Swizz Beatz. He conscientiously racked up his 10,000 hours; paid his own way through Atlanta Institute of Music & Media; and taught himself to engineer in order to gain access to sessions in Atlanta’s vibrant rap scene, working with the likes of T.I. and 21 Savage & Metro Boomin. Along the way, he met Gunna and a formidable hip-hop alliance was formed.

“We really started to lock in and from that point, I was just engulfed in it, all the way, completely,” Turbo says. “Every day was either engineering or producing or doing something. It just snowballed into what it is today.”

His relationship with Gunna hit paydirt on 2018’s Drip Season 3 mixtape, crossed over via Lil Baby’s collaboration with Gunna on the diamond-certified single, Drip Too Hard, and stayed strong through Gunna’s stint in jail in 2022 after the rapper pleaded guilty to a charge of racketeering (“I’ve had a lot of ups and downs, so it was important for me to make sure, publicly and not publicly, that I stood next to my brother,” says Turbo. “That’s something I’d want somebody to do for me”).

Turbo has had legal difficulties of his own, but recently won the $10 million copyright infringement claim over his iconic ‘Run that back, Turbo’ producer tag, filed by musician Jamal Britt, whose voice is heard in the clip. The judge ruled Britt had no valid claim to the tag and reinforced Turbo’s exclusive rights, ownership and control of the tag in future works.

Speaking to MBW before the case was settled, Turbo dismissed it as “pretty annoying” and “one of those situations you have to go through”, and the tag features on Turbo’s own new song, Classy Girl (feat. Gunna), as he launches an artist career to sit alongside his production work and his company, The Playmakers, a record label and production company collective.

“I’m ready to push the limit, take the music, the transitions, the frequencies and the feeling to another level,” he says of his forthcoming artist project. “That’s where the whole idea of the Turbo album came from. There are no walls when you’re a producer.”

That work ethic means he even works on vacation – he famously recorded part of Gunna’s smash hit album One Of Wun on a yacht, while he finished Big Sean’s Better Me Than You record on his birthday (“Did he get me a big present? He did – the album!”). He’s even moved effortlessly into country music, producing the smash hit Whiskey Whiskey by Moneybagg Yo featuring Morgan Wallen (“Country is just like hip-hop when I walk in the studio, it’s second nature”).

And that dedication to his craft means he’s determined to turn his current hot streak into an endless long hot summer of success.

But first, it’s time for him to sit down with MBW and talk streaming algorithms, AI and why he doesn’t pay attention to the music industry…

WHAT DOES THE HOT STREAK YOU’VE BEEN ON MEAN FOR YOUR CAREER?

Well, of course my phone’s blowing up. But, when my music comes out, people have the opportunity to realize that real music is still alive. Once it gets ungimmicky and somebody sees this came out or this is doing well, my phone always rings a little bit more, but it’s just my friends that have been in that process so long they kind of forgot about little old Turbo!

WHY DOES YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GUNNA WORK SO WELL?

We started together. In the beginning, he always looked at me as a producer, so I appreciated that, because I always wanted to be a producer, but, at that time, everybody was treating me as an engineer.

Gunna was the first one to start calling me and asking me for beats. In the beginning, I’d seen he was kind of lacking with his engineer, he wasn’t working at the pace I was working and Gunna used to be terrible with his hard drive. He used to walk around with it in two pieces.

When I saw that, I vividly remember having a conversation with him like, ‘This hard drive is the most important thing ever’. He’d pull the hard drive out of two different pockets and I’m like, ‘Bro, this isn’t how this is supposed to go’.

“It was [down to] our work ethic; we’re the ones that are going to stay at the studio the longest and work on the song until it’s all the way complete and sounds the best.”

From that point on, I told him I was going to be his engineer and record him, and he took that as an opportunity to rap on all my beats, because he didn’t really have to go to anybody else. I was sitting right there and I always made sure I had at least 20 beats a day to play for him.

It was [down to] our work ethic; we’re the ones that are going to stay at the studio the longest and work on the song until it’s all the way complete and sounds the best. We’ve been doing that pretty much every day and we just got glued to each other. The working relationship turned into a brotherhood and the brotherhood is everything at this point.

DID YOU ALWAYS THINK HE’D BE A MASSIVE STAR?

I’m not going to lie and act like I knew that he was going to be as big as he is now. I just knew that he could dress and he could rap and he was going to stay in the studio as long as I could, so that was enough for me.

IS THE PROCESS DIFFERENT WHEN YOU WORK WITH SOMEBODY YOU DON’T KNOW SO WELL?

If it’s somebody I don’t know well, I like those sessions where we just sit around and talk and get to know each other. Because I’m really into having a personal connection with somebody – with Gunna, Thug or Baby, that’s how I came into the game. Even with T.I., I had a connection, so I get anxious if I don’t have an opportunity to figure out who this person is that I’m working with.

That’s always my process; first session we’re going to basically talk and get to know each other, if we don’t already, and then from that point, I’m focused on pushing the limit.

Figuring out whatever the artist’s mood is, what sounds and frequencies he likes, and then going like a mad scientist, mixing everything up and seeing where I land.

A couple of years ago I started to feel like I knew exactly what was going to happen when I was going [to the studio] with various artists. But now I don’t know what’s going to happen and it’s super-exciting, especially when it turns out to be something good. Like with It Is What It Is, the song that came out with Big Sean – to see people love it is like, ‘OK, cool, we can be experimental and it’ll still work’.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE MUSIC INDUSTRY?

That shit’s not real. At the end of the day, the music controls everything, so I’m engulfed in making sure we have the best music. The industry and the tactics – I don’t pay attention to that shit!

DOES THE MUSIC INDUSTRY VALUE PRODUCERS AS MUCH AS IT SHOULD?

I don’t think it’s a value thing as far as the industry is concerned; everything is moving so fast and is so microwaved, it’s like an understanding thing.

Some people might not know what placements my producer Kenny [Stuntin] has, even though he produced on One Of Wun. But if I have a big voice, then I can shine the light on that and now people in the industry have a different outlook.

“that’s my entire purpose, creating a community with The Playmakers and letting people shine in their own light.”

I don’t want to just go to ‘undervalued’ because producers are extremely valuable and engineers are extremely valuable, without these people there is no music – you can’t sing or rap on air. It’s just bridging the two gaps and that’s my entire purpose, creating a community with The Playmakers and letting people shine in their own light.

DO PRODUCERS GET A BIG ENOUGH CUT OF STREAMING REVENUES?

In my opinion, no. I don’t think anybody really knows how the streaming percentages work.

But, as long as I’m able to provide for my family and myself, I figure Jay-Z or somebody will figure that shit out at some point.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE CURENT STATE OF HIP-HOP?

It’s definitely different from when I first came in in 2017/2018. But it’s a root cause more than an industry cause – in the beginning, there was way less entitlement and there was way more collaboration.

In Atlanta, everybody used to collaborate. It wasn’t like I had to call your manager; everybody was friends and it wasn’t for gain. And it’s not like that no more.

“I would love to get back to the process where everybody collaborates, where there’s no, ‘I’m going to get this feature for this thing’”.

As far as the state of hip-hop goes, everything’s become analytical as opposed to, ‘Let’s just be creative and see where we go’. I would love to get back to the process where everybody collaborates, where there’s no, ‘I’m going to get this feature for this thing’, just like, ‘Hey, we should get in the studio together, we could come up with something and see what happens’.

ARE STREAMING ALGORITHMS TO BLAME FOR THAT NEW APPROACH?

I might piss some people off, but I blame it on the A&Rs. They pressure artists, especially new artists, into TikTok or going viral, as opposed to the roots of being creative, speaking your truth and pushing the limit.

These past years, it became very analytical, even to the point where I’ve seen some of the A&Rs in the studio and I’m playing a beat that might have a sample in it, just to be creative. I don’t really care what happens with it but, before their artist has the opportunity to even think of a word or a bar, it’s like ‘We might not be able to clear that sample’. And I’m like, ‘Hey, who cares? We’re just working, being creative, maybe this song will turn into another song, who knows?’

You have to give people the opportunity to be creative and, coming in as a new artist, if you don’t understand that process, you can get tricked.

ARE YOU APPROACHING YOUR SOLO PROJECT WITH A DIFFERENT MENTALITY TO YOUR PRODUCTION WORK?

I wouldn’t say a different attitude, but I definitely have something to prove. I’m not cutting any corners with the production or mixing process, but the mentality is always the same: let’s make the best music, let’s push the limit, then flip it two times and see if there’s a better version.

What I’m learning about doing a producer album is, there’s a lot of label politics that I wasn’t aware of before, just moving around as a producer and working on all these other guys’ projects.

A lot of my producer friends will be on it but I’m not just going out and grabbing the names, or whatever you call it. It’s a lot of my friends and we’re just sitting back, making music.

DOES AI POSE A THREAT TO PRODUCERS?

For me, AI is amazing but, as a real musician and a real producer, I can see the flaws in it. A lot of the stuff that AI comes with is predictable.

When you’re a musician playing stuff, there are certain nuances that come from just playing it. It’s like putting ketchup on a French fry. A French fry is good as a French fry but, if you put ketchup on it or honey mustard, it’s just that much better! AI is a French fry right now, they haven’t found a way to put the ketchup on it, so it’s not really threatening to me.

IF YOU COULD CHANGE ONE THING ABOUT THE MUSIC INDUSTRY, RIGHT HERE AND NOW, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

I would take the entitlement and the egos out of the entire process. Not just in hip-hop, but music as a whole.

We still listen to Michael Jackson, Al Green and Earth, Wind & Fire, all these great songs from back in the day. And, in any of the footage that I found, it seems like they’re just sitting in the studio having fun. While there might have been a little bit of pressure to deliver the record, the process of creating the record didn’t seem as heavy as it is these days.

“take the entitlement out and maybe the music might be better, maybe the hip-hop genre might go back up to what it was.”

I’d tell everybody, just collaborate. If you’ve got an opportunity or resources, if you’re blessed enough to get signed to a label or work with a distributor or a great A&R or producer, just work with them – take the entitlement out and maybe the music might be better, maybe the hip-hop genre might go back up to what it was.

The key is, the new guys coming up are going to think that this is normal, this is the way that they should act. We’re getting to a place where kids don’t have the opportunity to feel what the music felt like back then. I don’t want it to become a normal thing.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE THE NEXT BIG HIP-HOP MOGUL?

I wouldn’t even just put it under the hip-hop umbrella, I’m going to become a mogul. I’m working towards becoming an executive producer as big as David Geffen.

That’s my goal, so right now I’m in the process; hip-hop is my thing, it’s in my blood and in my roots, so that’s what a lot of people know me for. That’s why I’m so ready to get this album out and let people see and understand the range of Turbo, it’s not just hip-hop.

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