Archive · Atlanta Hip-Hop
DJ Scream Presents Shawty Lo: I'm Da Man
By Diony C.
•September 11, 2026
•5 min read
2007. Before 'Dey Know,' before Units in the City, DJ Scream hosted the tape that introduced Shawty Lo as a solo voice. Rare. Out of print. Stream it in the archive.
Before Shawty Lo was a Billboard name, before “Dey Know” became his signature record, before the reality show and the eleven kids and Bankhead becoming his whole brand, there was a DJ in Decatur who believed in him before almost anyone else did.
DJ Scream had already made a name breaking Future and Migos before the world caught on. But it was Shawty Lo, his brother, his tour partner in D4L, who Scream still credits with changing his own life. I’m Da Man, released in 2007, was the mixtape that started it.
Rare. Out of print. Stream the full tape in the player above.
The Tape
Shawty Lo had already made noise as part of D4L, the group behind “Laffy Taffy,” a song so big it went double platinum and topped the Billboard Hot 100. But I’m Da Man was different: his real introduction as a solo voice, hosted start to finish by DJ Scream, the DJ he’d toured with as D4L’s official road DJ before this tape even existed.
The standout is right there in the title. The “I’m Da Man (Remix)” pulled in Rick Ross and Lil Wayne, both artists hitting their own respective peaks at the exact same moment, over a hook built for the clubs. Gucci Mane, Shawty Lo’s fellow Atlanta native and frequent collaborator, doesn’t just show up once, he’s featured twice, on “Got Em 4 The L-O” and again on “Trap Money,” a sign of just how tightly wound the Bankhead and Zone 6 scenes were at that moment.
Twenty-one tracks deep, the tape moves fast and never really slows down, skits and all: a K.I.N.G. intro leading into the full track, call-and-response interludes questioning “Is Shawty Lo The Man,” and a run of street cuts, “Lean Tha Pot,” “Crackwork,” “Pocket Full Of Money,” that make clear exactly what lane he was building before the world caught up.
It’s a tape that sits at the exact midpoint of two eras: snap music, the sound D4L helped define, on its way out, and trap, the sound Shawty Lo and his peers were about to make dominant for the next two decades, on its way in.
What DJ Scream Says About It
In his own words, hosting this project is what “finally found my rhythm and my swag.” He was confident. The streets were on fire. The phone didn’t stop ringing. Two decades later, he still calls it the moment that changed his life, and he still, to this day, says “salute to Shawty Lo, my brother forever.”
This is the tape that laid the groundwork. What came next, “Dey Know,” the Gold-certified single off Units in the City, is the hit that made him a household name. That story starts here.
”Dey Know,” Shawty Lo’s commercial debut single off Units in the City, released December 4, 2007. Not on this tape, but the hit that came right after it.
DJ Scream sat down with us for a full Collector Spotlight interview, breaking down this tape, breaking Future and Migos, and building a career that turned into a media company. This mixtape is the lead-up to that conversation, coming soon.
Why This Tape Lives Here
I’m Da Man is not on Spotify. It is not on Apple Music. It is not on Tidal or any other streaming platform. The only legitimate trace of it online is a bare AllMusic listing with no streaming links attached, alongside scattered DJ-pool and blog references from the era it dropped in.
That is the reason this tape lives in the mixtapekings.com archive with a native player. Not because it is convenient. Because the physical CDrs are aging out of circulation and the tape that introduced Shawty Lo, before Bankhead was his whole brand, deserves to be heard.
More From the Archive
I’m Da Man sits in the same lane as the other collector tapes here. For the wider story of how the free tape became the format that mattered, read The Evolution of Mixtape Culture. And for how the hosted-tape economy got built into an industry, DJ Drama Built the Blueprint.
For another Atlanta street tape from the same trap-ascendant moment, Young Dolph — Paper Route picks up the thread a decade later.
Stream the full tape in the player above.