Chopped and screwed

Chopped and Screwed
Stylistic origins	Southern Rap, Hip hop
Cultural origins	Early-1990s Houston, Texas
Typical instruments	Turntable - rapping - Sampler - synthesizer
(complete list)
Regional scenes
Houston - Atlanta - Memphis

Chopped and screwed (also known as screwed and chopped, slowed and throwed, Houston music, H-Town music, screw music, and screw) all refer to a technique of remixing hip hop music by slowing the tempo and applying various DJ techniques such as skipping beats, record scratching, stop-time, and sending portions of the music through stand-alone effects to make a "chopped-up" version of the original.

Overview

The style was developed in Houston, Texas, which remains the location most associated with the style. The late DJ Screw, a South Houston DJ, is credited with the creation of and early experimentation with the genre. DJ Screw began making mixtapes of the slowed-down music in the early 1990s. Originally, this process involved mixing two copies of the same record, slowed down either on the turntables using pitch shift or later through use of an after-mixer device. Phasing, Flanging and echo effects were originally the result of the two records being played at millisecond intervals.

Some Houston-area artists (e.g. Ganksta N-I-P and Willie D) began to incorporate the slowed tempo into rap songs. Willie D's song Die, from the album I'm Goin Out Lika Soldier, featured a slowed-down sample of Scarface's line "Balls and my word" (from the feature film) well before chopped and screwed gained more mainstream acceptance.

The genre was associated with both the use of marijuana and the consumption of "syrup," which contains the prescription drugs codeine and promethazine. This has been credited as influencing the genre's psychedelic style. DJ Screw made a significant number of mixtapes (purported to be in the thousands), usually with a theme. This provided a significant outlet for MCs in the South-Houston area, and helped local rappers such as Lil' Flip, E.S.G., UGK, Lil Neal, Lil' Keke and Z-Ro gain regional and sometimes national prominence. Early tapes were often chopped and screwed versions of instrumentals over which rappers would later freestyle, but later tapes were mostly vocal tracks with occasional toasting or freestyle intermissions. By the time of Screw's death in 2000, the genre had become widely known throughout the southern United States.

Mississippi rapper David Banner released a chopped and screwed version of his Mississippi: The Album in 2003, marking one of the first successful efforts by a major recording label to commercially promote the genre. Other Southern recording artists, including Eightball and MJG, Lil' Troy, The Geto Boys, MC Breed, Three 6 Mafia, and Chicago's Do or Die had similar success.

Currently, the style is exemplified in the music of Swishahouse DJs such as OG Ron C, DJ N.A.S, and Michael 5000 Watts. Their work has helped establish current rappers Paul Wall, Chamillionaire, Slim Thug, Mike Jones, and rap groups such as The Color Changin' Click and the Screwed Up Click. More major recording labels have embraced the genre, and chopped and screwed albums occasionally outsell the unmixed version.

Paul Wall's commercial success in 2005 has made him the most prominent artist working within the genre. It also marked a movement in production technique from turntables to the use of software programs such as Atomix's Virtual DJ. Paul Wall was invited onto MTV Jams during the summer of 2005 to host a block of chopped and screwed music videos and to talk about the remix technique that he uses. In April 2005, the first albums from the genre were made available at the iTunes Music Store.

Music videos

During the first half of 2005, numerous popular urban music videos were released in a chopped and screwed form in addition to their original. Among the videos released are:

• Still Tippin' by Mike Jones
• You Gonna Luv Me by Da Back Wudz
• Na-Na-Na-Na by Nelly
• Wait (The Whisper Song) by Ying Yang Twins
• Dem Boyz by Boyz N Da Hood
• What U Gon' Do by Lil' Jon
• Some Cut by Trillville
• You Don't Know Me by T.I.
• Smile by Scarface [originally released in 1997, but released in the summer of 2005 as a Screwed & Chopped remix video]
• Game Over by Lil' Flip
• Ridin' by Chamillionaire
• Sittin Sidewayz by Paul Wall
• Drive Slow by Kanye West (at the end)

The genre occasionally lends itself to other musical genres; Paul Wall remixed The Transplants album Haunted Cities in 2005 and The Black Eyed Peas' 2005 album Monkey Business, despite both albums being outside the rap genre. The Saturday Club, an Australian act, chops and screws rock music tracks, posting the results to the mp3 blog Screw Rock 'n' Roll.

Quotes

• "Hip hop records are literally slowed down to a molasses-like pace, and beats and lyrics ooze lazily out of the speakers. The result is a heavy, drowsy groove that, over the last 14 years, has exerted a major influence on Southern hip hop culture." (MTV.COM)

• "If Screw didn't do it, its not a screw tape." (The Conversation off the album: The Legend)

• "We call it Screw & Chopped music to pay homage to the Legendary DJ Screw aka The Originator." (Paul Wall)

Fiction

• Kid B, published in 2006 by Houghton Mifflin, was the first novel to feature Screw culture and lingo. The book mainly deals with teenagers and the language is pretty cleaned up, but the author still keeps it "trill". It's set in Beaumont and Houston.

See also

• Houston hip hop
• Southern Rap
• Screwed Up Click
• Monster Mixx

External links

• Official Dj Screw site
• Screw Rock 'n' Roll