It seems only natural for music producer and audio engineer Bernard “B. Hawk” Hawkins to count Stevie Wonder, Tupac, Hans Zimmer, and Yanni as just a few of his many musical influences. Born in Germany, the self proclaimed army brat considers Queens, NY home. Through his talents, Bernard a/k/a B. Hawk produces Hip Hop, R&B, Rock, and Pop music of the highest quality while lending his musically trained ear and talent to the soundboard and vocal booth as an audio engineer.
B. Hawk’s accomplishments to date have been well earned. In February of 2011, a hit single, “Painful War” by rising R&B singer YOBi featuring hip hop star Maino debuted on fm radio around the world, which B. Hawk produced. He then followed up with another hit production with R&B single “Set in Stone” by YOBi featuring hip hop heavyweights French Montana, Jadakiss, and Styles P. B. Hawk’s first international success came about when he produced “Live My Dreams” recorded with D.j. Lead, Maino, and Japanese artist Anarchy on Warner Records. “Live My Dreams” went to the top of Japanese iTunes charts beating out Lil’ Wayne and Nicki Minaj for six weeks straight. Although B Hawk has finally scratched the surface with mainstream, he counts Jay Z, Nas, Neyo, and Fantasia as a few of the musical heavyweights in which he would like to one day produce. In order to do that, he acknowledges that he must continue to grow and develop within his craft, as well as continuing to network with the right people within the industry.
B. Hawk has had the opportunity to connect with is A list comedian/actor celeb Tracy Morgan. By doing so, Tracy was able to see great potential in B Hawk’s talent and introduced him to the music industry’s famed producer Andre Betts. With him having 25 plus year experience in the music industry, Andre decided to help develop B Hawk’s talents to greater heights. Since then Andre Betts has involved B Hawk in many projects working with mega talents such as Living Colour, Shannon Greene, Ray Chew, Sugar Hill Gang, Gordon Chambers, and Rich Keller just to name a few. B. Hawk has been able to work along side famed producer Jerry Wonda as his personal audio engineer. With Jerry Wonda, B. Hawk has been able to engineer with Keke Palmer and Joey Badass. In recent years, B. Hawk has teamed up with music producer Arizona Slim to create some hard hitting, enriched arrangements of music from various genres. In the year 2020, French Montana’s “CB5” mixtape has three cuts that are produced from B. Hawk and Arizona Slim that features Jim Jones, Benny The Butcher, and Chinx.
B Hawk demonstrates a deep passion and respect for present influences and predecessors both musically and spiritually. Formally trained in clarinet, piano, and the drums, B Hawk continues to hone Pro Tools, Logic, Propellerhead Reason, Ableton, and mix/master plugin skills amongst a host of other audio engineering equipment of which he has mastered. B Hawk not only appreciates, but demonstrates the virtues of true musicianship.
“I feel that challenging my skills and working with artists constantly develops me as a record producer and audio engineer. It is proven that history repeats itself... this has a huge impact on music. I have the talent to compete in today’s music landscape as well as adjust to whatever new era of music is on the horizon both musically and sonically, while keeping the integrity of the musicianship which my forefathers have left behind.” – Bernard “B Hawk” Hawkins