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Screw Bash 2k13 Official Recap
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DJ Screw featured in Houston Hip Hop Collection at UH Library
Check out DJ Screw photos and memorabilia at the exhibit, “DJ Screw and the Rise of Houston Hip Hop”. The exhibit will run from March 19 – September 21, 2012 in the M.D. Anderson Library at the University of Houston. This is part of the new Houston Hip Hop Collection at UH Library.
This exhibition tells the story of DJ Screw and the S.U.C.. But it also explores the larger context of a music scene that has been independent, entrepreneurial, and rough-edged from its beginnings in the 1980s. From pioneers such as Geto Boys, K-Rino, and Street Military to more recent breakthrough artists such as Paul Wall, Z-Ro, and Chingo Bling, Houston hip hop has carved out its own distinctive path.
Although the exhibition will only be on display for six months, the materials on display are being preserved for future generations as part of the Houston Hip Hop collections at the University of Houston Libraries. These collections include the DJ Screw Papers, the DJ Screw Sound Recordings, the HAWK Papers, and the Pen and Pixel Graphics, Inc. Collection. In the future, once they have been cleaned, boxed, and cataloged, these rare materials will be available to scholars, students, and the general public by request in the Special Collections reading room.
If you are interested in donating material to the collection, please contact Julie Grob at . Donations will not automatically be accepted, but will be evaluated for historical significance, condition, and storage requirements. More info:
The Fellas. Various members of the Young Screwed Up Click and friends are seen posing for a picture outside of an apartment complex on Houston's South Side.
These pictures and more can be found in the
collection at the , as well as the “DJ Screw and the Rise of Houston Hip Hop” exhibit happening March 19 – September 21, 2012 at MD. Anderson Library. M.D Anderson Library was also one of many presenters at the
on March 27th and 28th.
Interview with DJ Screw 1999
By Daika Bray
Daika Bray: When did Fat Pat, Hawk, C-Note and the rest of the Screwed Up Click
start rappin at your house? After you already had started doin Screw
Screw: After I started doin Screw tapes. I was already doin ‘em, they was just
listenin to me. They’d hear me, I’d give shout outs to different people
in the neighborhoods, cause I had kicked it with everybody from every
neighborhood. I’d make personal tapes. I might make a tape for a couple
of my partners. Sometimes I’d just be makin a tape, come to the house,
kick it. Some of my partners that are locked up right now,
they’d come to the house and kick it, watch me make a tape. Might get
on the mic, give shout outs. We’d ride around, listen to that in the
car. It’s like you’re listenin to the radio, hear your own voice, ridin
in the car, start rappin. We got some feedback on it, people were likin
it. Everybody was takin it serious.
DB: I want you to clear up some of the rumors about Fat Pat. I’ve heard that
he was in the dope game, he was doing terrible things to people, and
what happened to him was just comin back onto him from stuff he’d done
in the past.
Screw: Ain’t none of that’s true. Fat Pat, we went to school together. Sterling
High School. In the dope game, tryin to feed our families. But it ain’t
like what people think, out there robbin, jackin. We weren’t with that.
Just hustlin, tryin to make ends meet, feed our families. Studio time.
Get our cards together. To help out each other and the Clique. What
happened to Fat Pat was just getting caught up with a shysty promoter.
We were doin a show down in Austin, Texas. Come to find out the dude who
we done the show with named Weasel video taped and audio taped the show
without tellin us. I found out about it, asked him about, he tried to
deny it. A while later he wanted us to come back and do another show. We
were like, fuck that, we ain’t gonna go back there. First, he disrespected by tapin the show
and sellin it, sellin it on the street and everything. Tryin to deny
it. That was when Pat’s album was comin out and he wanted to promote it,
he wanted to go back down there. I’m like don’t mess with that cat, we
got plenty more shows we can do. But he wanted to promote himself, he
went down there. And the dude, they were kicking it, he was a flashy
dude, liked to flash what he got. Some kinda way he got robbed or
something, he thought Fat Pat had something to do with it. He called Pat
over to give him some money for comin back and doin the show.
Basically, because he thought Fat Pat had something to do with him
getting robbed, he shot Pat. He killed him. He gonna get what’s comin to
him. Pat, that’s a real cool dude.
DB: You seem to be real particular about who you hang with. Why is that?
Screw: Cause really, a lotta my friends, most of ‘em dead or most of ‘em in
jail. I deal with all typa people. People be high, do drugs…everybody do
drugs, get high, but some of these cats try to be something they’re
not. Some people hang around just to see what you got. Some people be
around cause they got love for you. It’s cool to have friends, but too
many friends, some of ‘em ain’t your friends. Kinda hard to pick your
friends, you gotta see a person’s heart. When I look at a person I study
them hard. I kick it with anybody, I ain’t scared of nobody. Just like
they put their pants on, shoes on, same way I do. Ain’t no different.
I’m really just a people person. I like hearin the conversation, see how
they carry themselves. Be you, be yourself. You don’t get with one
person, act this way, then you get with another group, act that way.
That ain’t cool. Just be yourself, that’s my whole thing. It goes deep,
it goes real deep for real.
DB: All this success and all this fame, it hasn’t changed the way you do things? Just made you more focused do you think?
Screw: It made me more focused I think. I’m just bein me. Lotta people look at
me like I’m a star or something. I don’t see that. I’m just a regular
person, it’s just a lotta people know my name. I don’t consider myself
no superstar or nothing. I’m just a regular DJ, man. I like to kick it, play
music people can ride to. Something to inspire ‘em, make ‘em get up
every day, wanna go do something. I’m just tryin to give people
something positive to listen to while they do what they doin. Workin at a
job or in the streets, whatever, I’m tryin to give ‘em something, something good in their head. Let ‘em know it ain’t always bad.
DB: Speakin of it being always bad, you know how everybody’s talkin about
how in 2000 there’s going to be a major catastrophe, all the computers are gonna crash and all that. What kind of changes do you think will happen?
Screw: I think it’s gonna go on as it has been. They say the world gonna come
to an end. I think the world gonna come to an end for the people that’s
been doin bad stuff. Their world gonna come to an end. That’s how I look
at it. The world ain’t gonna stop. All the people that done messed over
our generation, they world gonna come to an end, for all the bad stuff
they done to us. And the success and all that, the talent I got, I ain’t
never gonna let that go to my head. It’s like the Man gave me the
talent, I’m just tryin to stick with it. We’re all here on this earth
for a purpose. I’m tryin to reach people through my music. Keep the
faith. Believe in yourself. Keep it real with the ones that’s real with
you, take care of your family…..you be alright.
DB: What was the first record that you Screwed? Do you remember?
Screw: Damn, I forgot……it’s been so many. Started DJing when I was 13, now I’m
28. I can’t remember what the first record was, but I got it though. I
got so many records, I keep up with all my records. I got all my
kinfolks, Shorty Mac, back in the day when I was first DJing. Like
records I didn’t like, I thought was bullshit, I’d take a Screw off of
it. Anything, I’d scratch the record up. They’d come to me, Man nigga
who you think you is? DJ Screw or something? That kinda stuck to me.
Most people think I got the name Screw cause I screw a lot, but that’s
how I got the name Screw, DJ Screw.
DB: You heard about Def Jam South setting up in Houston, making Scarface
president. How do you think that will change the industry in Houston?
Screw: It’s cool. It’s a good idea and all. I think it’ll help a lotta people,
cause we got a lotta talent down here. It ain’t just really got no big
record companies down here.
Everybody I know, we doin this independent. Like me, I’m independent. I
ain’t never signed with no label. I done work for Jam Down, done work
for Big Tyme, I’ve done work with a lotta labels, but I ain’t never
signed no contract with no label. Def Jam in the South, that’ll be cool,
cause that’ll bring some of the East, the West, another eye on us. If
y’all ain’t knowin by now, we the shit, we been the shit, we just ain’t
got that recognition. Like East Coast, they got a lotta studios, radio
stations, TV stations, but we down here, all we got one Rap station.
Really two–we got 97.9 The Box and we got the radio station SCREW. It’s
cool, we all come together, put something together, blow it up like
it’s supposed to. That’s what I’m tryin to do. I try to help everybody.
Shit you don’t hear on the radio, what you hear on my tapes might never
hit the radio. People that ain’t never put out an album but got talent. I
make beats, take them instrumentals, we’ll take that and make it like
our song. Def Jam South is cool, but we got Rap-A-Lot, Suave House,
Wreckshop, Screwed Up Entertainment, Jam Down, Big Shot, Big Tyme, Short
Stop. We got a lotta record companies down here.
DB: Define some terms for our readers. I already know, because I’m from
Houston and I live on the Southside, but define some of the slang that
we use down here like “bopper”, “body rock” “throwed in the game”.
Screw: “Throwed in the game” is like back when everybody used to say “that
shit’s dope, that shit’s def.” “Throwed in the game” is like damn that’s
some throwed shit, that’s some good shit. The slang is like that. Then
“bopper”, that’s like with bitches, some females are like “hey bop what
you got.” You got a clean car, you got a name, you got money. Like
jockin, it’s boppin, it’s just another term. “Body rock”, that’s the
Southside thing that we do. It really ain’t no dance, it’s like a body
movement we do. We really don’t dance down here, we bob our heads. We
body rock.
DB: We talked about Fat Pat. Tell me about Big Steve and what happened with him.
Big Steve–up and comin ghetto superstar, just got caught up. Wrong
place the wrong time. Some people were doin bad shit on the streets.
Steve just happened to be in the same place when the shit was gonna go
down. He got caught up in it. It’s like Steve got it just by bein with
the dude. The dude was just messin people over in the streets. Business,
wasn’t takin care of business the way it’s supposed to been done.
Hustlin. You know how you hustle–you owe people money, steal from them,
do all typa stuff like that. Niggaz ain’t gonna put up with that, just
can’t keep takin ‘em. Sooner or later it’s gonna go down. Niggaz comin
back, get revenge on this cat. You with him–everybody gotta go. How you
gonna just shoot this dude and not shoot this dude. That’s a witness,
and you sure don’t wanna be in trouble, so you’ve gotta kill two
birds…that’s how that happened. It’s fucked up. I miss my potna. He had a
bright future in the Rap game. I’m gonna miss him. But he’s always
gonna be here. We’re gonna keep him alive. I love you, man, I miss you.
You’re always gonna be around, sho’ nuff. “Rap it, scratch it.” That’s
Big Steve talkin to us.
DB: What are future plans for the Screwed Up Click?
Screw: Everybody in Screwed Up Click, we all got dreams of what we wanna be and
what we wanna do, what we wanna accomplish in life. Business, home,
record shops, lawyers, businessmen, whatever. Everybody got their ghetto
dreams. My plan is do the best I can do. Everybody wanna help theyself.
If they got their heart into it they really gonna do something. I know I
got my heart into it. I live and die for this shit, every day. I’ll do
the best I can, try to keep my name up high. For my family, the ones
that’s with us, upcoming generations. The young BG’s, they see us
rappin, they really like that. I’m tryna pave the way so they can shine
too. Cause the sun will shine on everybody. Everybody will get their
time to shine. It don’t happen overnight though. Gotta be dedicated.
Gotta be real about it, can’t just do it cause everybody else doin it.
You really wanna do it, you just gotta put your heart into it. Be true
to you, be true to the ones around you, your loved ones. Cause I ain’t
gonna fuck with nobody who don’t love me. Get real with me I’m getting
real with you. For real. I appreciate you doin this interview with me.
Y’all be on the lookout for Screwed Up Entertainment. I got my own lil’
record shop, Screwed Up Records and Tapes. Screwed up Texas, that’s
what’s we call this. Down South, Third Coast. It’s in your face, for
real. Showin up, pourin up, growin up.
DB: I wonder what your next step will be?
Screw: Like I said in 1990, I’m gonna screw the world up. It’s screwed up, but
it ain’t finished. I’m gonna keep on squaggin, go to Japan, Tokyo. A
lotta people don’t know this underground, it’s really worldwide. I have
people from all over the world comin, getting these tapes. Somebody come
down from Dallas, get a tape, take it back. They got a cousin from
Tennessee, dub that tape, take it there, they got a cousin…..it just go
on and on and on. Stay up stay real, and we’ll be screwed for life.
Is there anything else that nobody has ever asked you in an interview before, that you’d want to say?
Yeah. Don’t believe all these rumors. Cause I play my music slow, people
think you gotta get high, get fucked up, do drugs, just to listen to my
music. It ain’t like that at all. Or that I just do drugs all day,
that’s why my music’s slow. It ain’t all about that. I stopped smokin
weed a while back. Back in the game I was young, so I was smokin weed,
but you get burnt out on that. You don’t gotta get high to listen to my
music. It ain’t no worship the devil music. So people think you
worshippin the devil when the music drags. It ain’t about that. I’m just
bringin it to you in a different style where you can hear everything
and feel everything. Give you something to ride to. I’d like to thank
all the people that support me. Without the people supportin me I
wouldn’t be where I’m at today.
DB: Do you think you’ll ever put out a record of you rapping yourself?
Screw: Yeah. It’s in the makin. I rapped on DMD’s album, rapped on C-Note’s
album. On Keke’s album, I did something on. PSK-13, Point Blank, my
brother (Al D)….I’m gonna drop my album, Screwed Up Click album. I’ma
shock ‘em. I got a lot to say, I been through a lot. I’m gonna put
something out there as well as I do with the turntables. Y’all look
forward to it. It ain’t gonna stop till the casket drop.
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Houston Press: Still Standing
A decade later, thangs ain’t changed at Screwed Up Records & Tapes.
Wednesday, Dec 29 2010
On any given day, music fans stroll in and out of a dilapidated shack on ‘s Southeast side and buy CDs with such titles as Thangs Done Changed and Still Standing.
A decade after the death of its founder, and years of weathering an
avalanche of music-industry changes, Screwed Up Records & Tapes is
still standing.
Photos by Rizoh
The store has a woozy, laid-back atmosphere. Chopped and screwed versions of songs by ,
and others ooze from the surround-sound system. The display cases teem
with what looks like an eternity of Screw CDs and mixtapes.
Rap posters, S.U.C. shirts and beanies and a ton of other hip-hop
paraphernalia adorn the walls. In the back is a recording studio where
local artists go to cut new songs and tap into the innovative spirit of
the man who once walked the store.
Underneath the haze of Houston’s hip-hop scene, there was always the beating heart of , popularly known as .
It’s as if Screw woke up one morning, stuck his finger into the hot,
humid Houston air and sensed the city’s desire to cool things down. So
he went about exploring ways to slow rap music to a crawl.
In the early ’90s, this unique sound found its way onto the streets
of Houston. It was so original it took on the name of its creator. Screw
relied on a slow, laconic sound, a departure from the 808 blasts and
drum-driven style dominating the
and East coasts at the time.
If Screw’s style had a -progenitor, it was the blues. It wasn’t the type of -music you expected to hear at a club.
But Screw wasn’t just about slowing down rap songs. That’s part of
it, but it was also an original art form that relied on an innovative
technique. It’s grown into a lifestyle, a culture and a hip-hop movement
in its purest form.
DJ Screw’s co-conspirators were equally sluggish in their approach to
rapping. For the most part, their lyrics didn’t protest anything or
threaten anyone, just celebrated their slow-motion lifestyle.
Whereas East Coast MCs were perpetually menacing and hasty, Southern
rappers were calculated and relaxed, albeit with the occasional hint of
ominous tales. Regardless of the topic, there was always a sense of
Thus the sound of Screwston was born. Not since New York nicknamed
itself the “birthplace of hip-hop” in the boom-bap days has one city
been so synonymous with a specific sound. Screw’s dominance continued to
grow even years after his death, as his mixtapes and albums traveled
across the Mason-Dixon line.
Then, in the mid-2000s, the tide of history turned in favor of Houston hip-hop’s short-lived hegemony as spearheaded by , ,
and . Veterans like Scarface,
christened their arrival, but one shout-out kept popping up on everyone’s records: “R.I.P. Screw.”
Today, that familiar name has single-handedly turned Screwed Up
Records & Tapes into a monument of sorts. In terms of regional
significance, it’s to Houston hip-hop heads what ‘s Tuff Gong Studio is to reggae fans and ‘s Kalakuta Shrine is to Afrobeat followers.
On a global level, its prominence isn’t necessarily on that level. You won’t find
dropping by to record an album there, for example. But you’ll see throngs of hip-hop heads popping in for a piece of history.
Lil D, the radiant manager who helps oversee Screwed Up Records &
Tapes’ operations, estimates that the shop moves about 40 CDs on a good
day, and around 80 on a very good day. But he’s quick to add that sales
have declined significantly as tape seekers migrate online. The store
is readying a new Web site to palliate the damages done by those pesky
pirates, and also help catalog some of the mixes available at the store.
DJ Screw was such a prolific producer that indexing his tapes is a
grueling task. Like the man behind the legacy, the staff is in no rush
to move, transferring about three or four new tapes to CD every month.
While nearly 300 mixtapes are accounted for as of this writing, Lil D
says another 150 or more have yet to be transferred — not including
albums and one-off projects. Oh, and no one knows the exact location of
all Screw’s tapes.
So, how exactly has the store managed to stay afloat in the age of
and torrent sites? Lil D credits the loyalty of Screw fans: “People
support us because they know that this is what feeds his family,” he
Still, not too many businesses can survive on the strength of charity support. There’s something else going on here.
“Screw’s originality is the key,” says Lil D. “There’s a lot of
people that come out and copy. But you can’t duplicate this. A lot of
people know it’s the real deal, and they can tell the difference between
Screw’s mix and other people’s mix.”
Originality aside, Screwed Up Records & Tapes also finds strength
in the support of Screw’s disciples. If you call the store’s answering
machine, you’re likely to hear the profound basso of
calling out the store’s business hours.
“You done reached Screwed Up Records & Tapes,” recites the Houston rapper. “Our business hours are Monday to Friday…”
Priceless.
Z-Ro, Lil’ Flip,
and the countless extended members of the S.U.C. family remain staunch
supporters of the landmark shop, not because it’s considered an honor to
be affiliated with the S.U.C. They remain supportive because family was
Screw’s mantra.
Original article:
The Guardian, London Remember Screw’s Legacy
GUARDIAN MAGAZINE (LONDON, UK)
November 2010
“DJ Screw: from cough syrup to full-blown fever”
Jesse Serwer
Sometime around 1990,
named Robert Earl Davis, Jr decided music was just too fast for his
liking. Using the pitch controls on his turntables, he began slowing
records to preternaturally slow speeds, augmenting his mixes with smooth
cuts and slurred commentary that sounded as if delivered from beyond
the grave. Davis, better known as DJ Screw, wasn’t the first DJ or
producer to purposely pitch down music for effect, but he preserved the
glacial pace throughout his 100-minute mixtapes, developing a uniquely
psychedelic, ethereal sound that would come to be known as chopped and
screwed, or, simply, Screw music.
Texas coincided with a surge there in the popularity of drank
(otherwise known as “lean,” “syrup” or “barre”), a mixture of
prescription-strength cough syrup and soda that can create a feeling of
sedated euphoria when taken in large quantities. He and the Screwed Up
Click (SUC), the loose-knit collective of Houston rappers who freestyled
on his mixtapes, referenced the purple-hued concoction so often that
their music and their drug of choice become as closely associated with
one another as acid rock and LSD. When Screw, just 29 at the time, died
on November 16, 2000, from what medical examiners said was an overdose
of codeine – drank’s active ingredient – that connection was forged for
“The first thing [people] think of when they hear Screw’s
name, or Screw music in general, is the syrup sippin’,” says Cedric
“ESG” Hill, a Houston rapper affiliated with the Screwed Up Click.
“That’s just the culture down here and a way of life. It’s not that
everyone who listened to Screw sipped syrup.”
Davis was confined
to regional success in his lifetime, but today his influence has spread
more widely. It can be heard in the R&B/hip-hop hybrids of T-Pain
(see ;s cheeky homage Chopped and Screwed) and
is an update of Screw’s)
and in the arty, haunted sounds of so-called “witch house” acts such as
the ascendant Michigan trio Salem. Sweden’s Karin Dreijer Andersson, of
the Knife fame, cited chopped-and-screwed mixes as an inspiration for
her recent solo project, . Like a G6, a No 1 song in the US by LA pop rappers Far East Movement, contains a reference to “sippin’ sizzurp”.
the growing interest in his music, Davis himself remains something of
an enigma. He gave few interviews, and many biographical details – the
source of his nickname, for instance – remain sketchy and subject to
conflicting accounts. His life began in the appropriately sleepy rural
town of Smithville, Texas (or, according to some reports, neighboring
Bastrop), two hours west of Houston. After a brief spell living in
California, he moved to Houston’s hardscrabble south side to live with
his father. There, he encountered Daryl Scott, a local DJ and record
store owner who would play uptempo dance records at reduced speed to
blend them more seamlessly with hip-hop and R&B’s slower tempos.
would take [Laid Back’s] White Horse and [Mantronix’s] Fresh Is the
Word – 12in singles that were on 45rpm – and play those at 33rpm, and
mix them in with regular songs at regular speed, and it blew a lot of
people’s minds,” Scott says. Among those with blown minds were Davis and
another young DJ named Michael Price, and the pair soon developed their
own music-slowing methods. But Price was stabbed to death shortly
thereafter, leaving Screw to explore the sound’s possbilities on
“He had a multitracker, which allowed you to really slow
that pitch down,” Scott says. “I thought it was a little bit too much.
The first time I popped a tape of his in the deck, I tried to push stop
because I thought it was being chewed up.”
Although it is often
presumed that Screw music’s slow pace is meant to simulate the drowsing
effects of drank, Davis said in a 1995 interview with Rap Pages magazine
that it was marijuana, and a desire to hear lyrics more clearly, that
inspired his process. “When you smoking weed listening to music, you
can’t bob your head to nothing fast,” he explained.
The earliest
Screw tapes were made specifically for friends, who would commission him
to make mixes for special occasions such as birthdays or funerals.
Typically, he remixed new hip-hop tracks – he loved west coast gangster
rap such as Too Short and Spice 1 – but he’d also throw in the odd
throwback, such as Mama Used to Say, the early 80s hit by UK funk singer
Junior, or Love TKO by Teddy Prendergrass. Eventually Screw’s “grey
tapes” –
they were distributed on grey Maxell cassettes, not CDs – grew
to include freestyles by local rappers and, sometimes, whoever happened
to be at his studio when he was making a mix. As his legend grew, first
in Houston and then neighboring areas of Texas and the Gulf Coast,
customers began travelling to his house to purchase their own copies of
his tapes, which he sold for $10 apiece.
“We would just ride up to
the man’s house, and when the gate would come open, that would mean
he’s open for business,” says Screwed Up Click rapper Joseph “Z-Ro”
McVey. “You could come get a Screw tape.” (Davis later opened a shop, , it’s still in business, along with six satellite stores).
labels soon came calling. Houston’s Big Tyme rereleased a pair of grey
tapes on CD as 3’N tha Mornin’ Pt 1 and Pt 2 in 1995, bringing Screw
music into stores across the US for the first time. But working within
the traditional music industry never particularly interested Screw. He
deflected the attention to SUC rappers such as Lil’ Keke, Big Pokey, Big
Moe and the late Fat Pat (Houston’s answer to the Notorious BIG was
killed just as his first album, Ghetto Dreams, was due to be released),
helping them secure record deals of their own.
Screw appeared on
the verge of a major breakthrough at the time of his death in 2000.
Three 6 Mafia had just scored a hit with Sippin’ on Some Sizzurp, an
homage to Houston’s drug and music culture featuring Screw associates
UGK. Online file-sharing services such as Napster were bringing Screw
tapes to markets they had never before reached.
Davis’s friends
insist it was his restless, workaholic lifestyle – he made as many as
1,000 mixtapes, according to some estimates – and poor health habits
that contributed to his heart attack, just as much as drank.
lived a hard lifestyle,” says SUC rapper Ore “Lil’ O” Magnus-Lawson. “We
were staying up all night, sometimes going three days with no sleep,
chain-smoking tobacco and weed. It was a lifestyle that anyone who
wasn’t on drank might fall victim to a heart attack because of.”
was not the only member of his coterie to die under similar
circumstances. Big Moe, SUC’s answer to Cee Lo with his hybrid of
singing and rapping, suffered a fatal heart attack at age 33 in 2007.
UGK’s Pimp C, also 33, died in his sleep after consuming large amounts
of codeine.
Meanwhile, copycats and acolytes had begun making
their own chopped-and-screwed mixtapes. The most notable of these were
Michael &#” Watts and Ronald “OG Ron C” Coleman, DJs from Houston’s
north side who decided to make their own slow mixes after hearing SUC
rappers diss their part of town on Screw tapes. Their record label
Swisha House was the first to release chopped-and-screwed versions of
entire albums, and the launching pad for Paul Wall, Slim Thug and Mike
Jones, artists who rose to prominence in the mid-noughties with records
that layered screwed-up samples over standard-speed beats. “Screw helped
everybody in Houston with their career, regardless of if it was
hands-on or not,” says Houston rapper Frazier “Trae” Thompson
“He was
our form of radio. He was responsible for the whole sound our city
became known for.”
Drake is an unlikely champion for that sound.
The cleancut Canada native’s lyrical themes, mostly about romance and
heartbreak, don’t overlap much with the nihilistic car and drug raps
found on Screw tape freestyles. But rap’s newest superstar, whose
performances in Houston have included tributes to Screw and cameos from
SUC’s Z-Ro and Lil Keke, points out that it’s the dream-like feel of
Screw’s mixtapes that speaks to him and others from outside their
“Sometimes I feel guilty for how much I love Screw and the
SUC,” Drake says via email. “I feel like Houston must look at me as
someone who is just latching on to a movement. But I just can’t express
how that shit makes me feel. That brand of music is just everything to
me. It’s hip-hop, it’s sexy, it’s relaxing. I live for those emotions.”
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RIP DJ Screw 1971 &#
<img src="/images/djSCREW1small.jpg"
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3538 West Fuqua
Houston, TX 77045
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