Matt Miller, Decade: Rap Music and the U.S. South, 1997-2007: Houston

Dirty Decade: Rap Music and the U.S. South, 1997-2007

Matt Miller, Emory University

Essay Sections:

Rap Scenes and Styles of the South:

City Sections:

Miami
Houston
New Orleans
Memphis
Atlanta
Virginia Beach

Houston:

Houston also had an embryonic rap scene by the mid to late 1980s. As Atlanta-based journalist Roni Sarig notes, while the Fifth Ward was one of the city's oldest black neighborhoods, it was in South Park, a newer black neighborhood that "encompasses both hard-core slums and middle-class streets" that some of the city's earliest rap music emerged.22 The group Real Chill released a single in 1986, and along with groups like Triple Threat or Royal Flush was part of the first generation of artists and producers to rise in Houston. But what made Houston into the South's early capital of rap was the 1986 founding of Rap-A-Lot Records by James Smith (later known as James Prince), "a young black salesman of used luxury cars," in partnership with Cliff Blodget, a white software engineer from Seattle.23

Smith worked on building a roster of local artists, eventually putting together a group called the Geto Boys. The group's exposure to the national market depended upon the intervention of New York-based producer Rick Rubin, who signed the Geto Boys to his Def American label and produced a hard-hitting album of sample-driven material (understandably consistent with the dominant New York aesthetic) to support the group's gangsta rap lyrics. Stylistically, the album was consistent with the dominant trends in the New York- and Los Angeles-based rap mainstream. The only thing "southern" about the Geto Boys was their origin, which, in keeping with the moment, was perceived as an anomaly rather than a central feature of their ability to produce credible rap music for national audiences.

The earliest version of James Smith's Ghetto Boys (1987, Rap-A-Lot).

Regardless, The Geto Boys was nothing if not controversial — as one critic observed, it "was so verbally abusive that Geffen severed all ties with Def American, which never worked with Rap-A-Lot again."24 The notoriety gained by these events no doubt helped propel their next album — 1991's We Can't Be Stopped, distributed by California-based independent Priority Records — to national prominence, cementing Rap-A-Lot's (and by extension, Houston's) reputation as "a central entity in the southern rap scene, . . . [and] a beacon for many southern rap artists who were geographically or culturally distant from . . . New York or Los Angeles."25

The group that rose to prominence in the early 1990s was the most recent of several attempts by Smith to put together a "Ghetto" or "Geto" Boys. The biographies of the group's principal members speak to the lack of a unified tie to place — while both Willie D. and Scarface were from Houston, they grew up in different neighborhoods, separated by geographical distance as well as social class. The diminutive Bushwick Bill had family roots in Jamaica and had moved to Texas as a teen. This incarnation of the group was described in 1992 as "the hottest music figures to come out of the Houston area since Clint Black."26 Rap-A-Lot continued to release music by Geto Boys veteran Scarface ("the label's biggest star"), as well as the significantly less angry Odd Squad, and found regional support for subsequent efforts by Odd Squad member Devin the Dude and a variety of Houston-based artists, including Ganksta N-I-P and The Fifth Ward Boyz.27 In 1995, Smith broke with Priority and negotiated a deal with Noo Trybe/Virgin to distribute Rap-A-Lot. While its centrality in the Houston scene declined as other independents rose to prominence, "the label's rags-to-riches story continues to exert a strong influence on Houston rappers."28

Other labels and artists added to the momentum Rap-A-Lot had initiated. Rapper Bun B and rapper and producer Pimp C had grown up in Port Arthur on the Texas-Louisiana border, but as UGK they gravitated to Houston's rap scene. Their 1992 debut on local label Big Tyme Recordz caught the attention of Jive Records, who released several albums by the group, including the highly acclaimed Ridin' Dirty in 1996. UGK's sound featured slower-than-average tempos and live instrumental backing music or sampled equivalents playing bluesy grooves, a style that came to be known as "Texas funk." Despite their status as "one of the key acts defining southern hip-hop" in the mid-1990s, UGK was not able to fully capitalize on their popularity.29 Five years passed before they released another album, and in 2002, Pimp C was sent to prison for aggravated assault. Though "few listeners outside the South" heard UGK's music during their heyday, their growing reputation further elevated Houston's profile.30 Suave House Records also played an important role in the continuing expansion of Houston's rap scene in the 1990s. The label was founded by Memphis native Tony Draper, who brought his hometown's hottest rap duo 8-Ball & MJG with him when he relocated to Texas.

The South as a desert wasteland in an advertisement for 8-Ball's triple CD, Lost (1998, Suave House).

Innovative artists and stylistic approaches continued to emerge from Houston — in 2005, critic Kelefa Sanneh claimed that the city "has been producing some of the country's best and weirdest rap since the late 1980s" — and the local subgenre called "screw" played an important role in this process. The genre was pioneered and named after DJ Screw, whose homemade "screw tapes" presented a technological reworking of rap songs which involved playing the song at half-speed (producing extra-deep bass and percussion and groaning vocals) and repeating small portions of the song in a technique called "chopping." Screw's music turned out to be the perfect soundtrack for another emerging local scene, based around the consumption of narcotic cough syrup (called 'syrup' or 'lean'). Screw has been cast as a reflective outgrowth of this drug scene, but Sanneh finds that connections between the musical style and "the city's slow, rambling speech patterns" or "the region's thick, muggy climate" are no more compelling than the argument that screw tapes were simply the perfect entertainment for a highway-happy city where you might spend more time driving to the club than being there. Whatever the connection between screw and the environment from which it emerged, screw has defined Houston's identity within the national rap music culture, and has formed a central part of locally-felt local rap music identity: "Just about every new album or mixtape from Houston is still available in two versions: regular or slow."31

While DJ Screw overdosed on cough syrup in 2000, the genre has been carried forward by other local labels and producers (such as Swishahouse's Michael "5000" Watts). Elements taken from or inspired by screw tapes have also formed part of the local identity of Houston artists who are working in more commercial formats. The 2004 song ''Still Tippin','' by Mike Jones with Slim Thug and Paul Wall, featured elements drawn from or insired by the screw style and represented a breakthrough for national awareness of the Houston subgenre. Along with Lil Flip, who "got his start rhyming on DJ Screw's tapes," these artists represent the vanguard in a scene that has managed to retain its prominence in southern rap even as Memphis, New Orleans, and Miami have slowed considerably since the Dirty South heyday of the late 1990s.32

Lil Flip advertisement for Johnny's Jewelry (detail).

Lil Flip in an advertisement for Houston jeweler Johnny Dang (2004).

Audio Samples:

ATTENTION: Some of these audio samples contain explicit content.

Geto Boys, "Do It Like a G.O." (1990 Rap-A-Lot Records)
(20 sec.)
The Geto Boys were the first Houston group to break through to national audiences.

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Mr. Scarface, "I'm Black" (1993 Rap-A-Lot Records)
(20 sec.)
Former Geto Boy Scarface recorded several solo albums before becoming president of Def Jam South in 2000.

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Odd Squad, "Coughee" (1994 Rap-A-Lot Records)
(20 sec.)
The work of the Odd Squad embodies a soulful and less aggressive take on the Houston rap style.

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Underground Kingz (UGK), "Front, Back & Side-to-Side" (1994 Jive Records)
(20 sec.)
This Port Arthur-based duo delivers a funky 1994 ode to low rider cars.

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Eightball & MJG, "Boom Boom" (2001 Suave House Records)
(20 sec.)
One of Houston's top rap acts moved to the city from Memphis in the early 1990s along with their record label.

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Lil' Flip, "Game Over" (2004 Sony)
(20 sec.)
Lil' Flip became one of Houston's newest stars around 2004.

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DJ Michael �5000� Watts featuring Archie Lee, �Weight a Minute Freestyle� (2004 Swishahouse)
(20 sec.)
Elements drawn from Houston's "screw" style have influenced other rap being produced there, as in this track by Michael "5000" Watts featuring Archie Lee.

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