Drake hype chopped1/11/2024 ![]() ![]() It Was All a Dream is not nearly as strong a book as DJ Screw. ![]() members, who’d never gotten a high-profile book of their own, squarely within the rap canon: Al-D, E.S.G., Big Pokey, Big Moe, and, of course, Big Floyd. A Life in Slow Revolution not only offers Screw the studied biographical record he deserves, but also puts so many of his fellow S.U.C. Screw was so iconic within his city that he not only brought national attention to Houston’s rappers, but was credited with helping end violent rivalries between Houston’s North and South sides he was so iconic within his state that, months after he died of an overdose in November 2000, at age 29, Texas Monthly ran a lengthy profile of the man and placed his name in a coverline, right next to its centered photo of then–first lady Laura Bush. As Walker chronicles, artists like Ice Cube would send their singles to Screw and his team in order to get the chopped-and-screwed treatment, which led to further publicity. It was completely counterintuitive to how most listeners thought this music should sound-played at normal speed and loud volume, with the bass jacked up-and yet they couldn’t deny it. In essence, Screw conducted a Houstonian symphony: variations on a theme, packed with images of tricked-out cars, overflowing codeine cups, and scratched-up vinyl discs. And then there were the freestyles: Screw took beats from rap artists and had his friends (like Big Floyd) spit their own bars or sing their own melodies over those rhythms, later slowing the recordings of these sessions down and giving the rappers’ voices a deep, trippy ring and echo. The songs weren’t warped, like they may have initially sounded they were reinterpreted. ![]() These moves fleshed out the most essential aspects of any given rap song, forcing listeners to pay attention to the beats within the beats, drawing out words listeners may have overlooked. of it, and added his spins: interspersing bits of other songs within the slowed-down tracks, repeating certain lines and instrumental portions, sprinkling in loud, snapping drums to accompany repeated syllables, and capturing all these turntable tricks on cassette. As Walker notes, he wasn’t the first to champion the core aspect of chopping and screwing-playing a vinyl record at a slower speed in a public setting-but he did make an M.O. It’s no exaggeration to say DJ Screw, born Robert Earl Davis Jr., changed everything. In a more just world, Big Floyd would have achieved the fame he’d long desired for having been part of this movement, rather than for what his death now represents more would have heard Floyd’s voice from his vivid, straight-talking freestyles than from the recording of his wrenching final words. Their innovative “chopped and screwed” method, with its trademark slowed-down, ethereal, drum-snapping, repetitive, bass-heavy, low-voiced sounds, echoes in songs and videos from Texans like Beyoncé and Megan Thee Stallion-and even beyond that, in a beautiful scene from the Oscar-winning Moonlight, or within hits by Miley Cyrus, Lil Wayne, Drake, Mac Miller, ASAP Rocky, Kanye West, Jay-Z, and Kendrick Lamar. Even if you’ve never heard of the Click or its anchoring leader, DJ Screw, you have felt and heard the group’s impact on popular music and culture. Most Americans who learned George Floyd’s name two years ago have still never heard the stage name by which his hometown of Houston recognized him: Big Floyd, member of the legendary rap group Screwed Up Click. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |