Where exactly are you from? I was born and raised in the Yellowstone area of Houston, 3rd Ward. Who were some of the people you came up with? Mike D in from 3rd Ward. In South Park there was Keke, Hawk, Fat Pat and them, and Lil O is from the Southwest side. Were you rapping before you met Screw? Naw, Screw put that on my mind. I was playing football around that time, but I used to go to Screw’s house. That used to be a big thing, everybody wanted to go to Screw house. If you ain’t went to Screw house you ain’t done nothing. Screw had these tapes and he was slowing it down. It was a real big thing for the underground and it gradually got bigger and bigger. One day my potna Mack 1 took me over there. At that time you had to put in a list of songs you wanted, and if you wanted to flow he’d save you space on the end. Before you know it, everybody was trying to get on there and make they own tape. Screw brought a lot of neighborhoods on the South side together, because everybody was going through there getting tapes. Normally would have different neighborhoods getting into it or whatever, but everybody started really linking up with each other and knowing each other and messing around. Do you remember the first time you heard a Screw tape or the first time you heard a song slowed down like that? Man, naw. It was a long time ago. We used to be out there on the corner and somebody would pop something in. That “Gin & Juice,” that Snoop Dogg, I remember that. The main thing about the mixtape was he’d have a bunch of songs from different artists on one tape. The first tape I heard, Keke was on there and Fat Pat was flowing on there, way back in the gap. We’d be just shooting the shit and a nigga might just start freestyling. Talking about whatever, the cops coming around, the hoodrats walking by, who got work, who just sold out they work, who got mo’ money. That’ll take your ear because it’s not like everything that’s being played on the radio. On this here you got somebody just going off on a beat. That became a real big thang. Did you like the slowed down music the first time you heard it? Aw, yeah. You know, it was live. Everybody cut for it. Screw introduced a lot of other artists out here that people wouldn’t even know. The Hot Boys, he blew them up out here. C-Bo, Above the Law, other stuff you wouldn’t even know about. He was putting all that on these tapes. He was a DJ so they used to send him all this new stuff at a time, so when you went in to make your tape he’d let you know what he got new. One thing he did that I picked up on was if somebody had a project that just came out, he wouldn’t let you get a bunch of songs off they album. He’d let you get one or two, I didn’t understand it at the time, but he wanted to give them a chance to sell. If he went and Screwed a whole project down that would take away from they sales and he didn’t do that. So that was a good thing, man. Before you knew it this whole southern region was on this Screw thing. What do you think made it so infectious? Cause it was kind of strange to me at first. I started understanding as I heard more, but at first I think it was hard for a lot of people to give it a chance. There’s a lot of people out here that wouldn’t give it a chance. Matter of fact, my sister, one time I put a tape in her deck and she was like, “Is it me or is the radio trippin’?” And I was like, “Naw, that’s the tape,” and now she a Screw head. And my sister is 46 years old! Texas is a laid back state anyway. There’s drama everywhere you go, but we ain’t bangin’ like Cali, we not trippin’ off no colors or none of that. So it’s familiar to us. And as far as the music, you could understand it word for word. Some people like beats, some people like lyrics. I want to hear what you talkin’ about, personally. Then the way he was on the ones and twos. I ain’t never seen nobody bring it back and chop it up like he did, man. It just brought life to the tape. It was just cool to listen to. So did you start rapping just freestyling in the room with Screw? Yeah, and one day Screw pulled me to the side and said, “You need to pick that pen up and give it a chance.” I wasn’t thinking that. I was just doing it for fun. But Screw had made such an impact to the point where people that was around me in my circle was getting ready to drop projects. We already had the Botany Boys, they was doing they thing. They was the first. Then Pat and Mike D were south side players, then me, Keke, Hawk and KK did the DEA thing. We combined South
Side Players with DEA and made DEA. That was the first mainstream project we worked on. We got good results on it, from freestyling on tapes to that point it was a big thing. Shortly after that Keke did his solo, Don’t Mess With Texas. Seeing where he came from to where he went right then it was kind of like, “Oh, this is for real.” One time I was talking to him on the phone and he was just telling me how things was going and all the shows he was doing and the deposits coming in and I said, “Man, there’s some bread in this here.” Very shortly after that, Pat was working on his project. We did a song together and people would hear that and ask me when I was gonna drop mine. That’s all I needed to hear. When I heard that that’s when I knew I was finna really take this seriously. The rap game really just kind of fell into my lap. I wasn’t looking for it, it just came. Who put out your first album? Chevis Entertainment. A good friend of mine wanted to put my project out. He drew up a contract and it was very successful. Things were a little different for independents then, wasn’t it? Who did you know independently who could move 100,000 units with no promotion? On the East coast you might have had somebody move 3,000 out the trunk and got a deal. I’d do 3,000 before the day was over back then. The only promotion we had was a couple of flyers and posters, and my shows. And the Screw tapes. Yeah, the Screw tapes was the promotion! But see, when we started doing our solos, we kind of chilled on doing the mixtapes. We shouldn’t have done that. We should have kept on doing the mixtapes cause the mixtapes steady boosting your clientele and then you can promote your album. So when Screw passed it was still a hunger for that music, cause it had already started up and they wanted it. When Swishahouse started doing the slowed down thing too, they was putting their music out there for the folks that wanted it Screwed. What was your biggest tape? June 27th was one of them. That tape probably still selling. I guarantee you, man, we was doing it for the love of it. We wasn’t getting paid off them Screw tapes. That was Screw money. We wasn’t even looking for no money off of it. What we did get was a fan base off it and a career so we couldn’t complain. Man, June 27th I know sold over gold. Is it fair to say that a lot of the slang and a lot of the style today comes directly from those Screw tapes? Yeah, that’s what it was. What we brought to the game was a whole ‘nother thing. I know people that grew up off our music, and a lot of those people are people y’all might feel right now. ’m just proud of where we started and what it did for the city and how far it’s gone and all the love and support and respect that we get from it. Screw was good people. I’m not mad cause Swishahouse is slowing music down. Shit, if they didn’t do it, somebody was gonna do it. That’s money out there to go get and I’m not knocking that. I don’t feel that they copying us or they stealing our style. Game recycle game all day long. Everybody quick to say “Damn, why Kobe wanna be Jordan.” Naw, man, the nigga Kobe. Shit, Iverson ain’t trying to be Jordan, but he cloned his game off of somebody that he was cutting for. Period and point blank. He ain’t just discovered no game by hisself, he watched somebody. He might have watched three people and pieced that together. The bottom line is game recycles game and you can’t stop that. Go get ya money and I’m gonna go get mine. What were some of the words and phrases y’all pioneered? Oh, man. “It’s goin’ down!” “Hold up,” “Know’m talkin’ ‘bout,” “slabs.” Sometimes it’s not even the words, it’s how you say it. And just like with the Screw movement, we was coming off the head. Well who are you with now? What are you working on? Right now I’m with Pearl Records. The CEO Julian Kimble and I got my labelmate Kano. I’m very content with where I’m at. I feel like the sky’s the limit for us. Me and the bossman got a healthy relationship. We got our eyes on the prize and we finna get our shit right. My project is pretty much done and we about to drop that. Kano’s album almost finished, he a beast, he can make an album in a night. This will be my first record with this label, but my fourth solo. I’m looking for this to be better than anything I’ve ever dropped. OZONE
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