b. Anthony Platt, 1982, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. This Atlanta-based DJ and rapper was one of a number of artists to emerge from the city’s underground club scene and cross over to mainstream success in the mid-00s.
Platt began DJing while at high school, and by the late 90s was performing on the college circuit with the Southern Style DJs. He switched to Atlanta-based impresario Big Oomp’s Oomp Camp at the start of the new millennium, and as the self-styled DJ Unk was regularly heard on their mixtape productions. By 2005, Unk had become a big player on the Atlanta mixtape circuit, with several solo releases to his name. He enjoyed a major underground hit in 2006 with ‘Walk It Out’, an infectious dance track built around an insistent Oomp rhythm that helped spark a mini-dance craze in Atlanta clubs. The track broke into the US pop charts later in the year, prompting the release of Beat’n Down Yo Block!, an enjoyable album that mixed up club tracks with thuggish street anthems.
