Interview: Z-Ro on DJ Screw and the S.U.C.
Last week, I published a story in the Guardian on the life and lasting influence of legendary Houston sound pioneer DJ Screw. Truthfully, I originally researched and wrote the article (although the version in the Guardian is much different than that original draft) for a certain U.S. rap magazine that did not ultimately run it. (I’m glad they didn’t put it in the issue it was slated for because the cover is creepy, but that’s a whole ‘nother story). Originally that article was going to focus not just on Screw but the darkness that has surrounded the Screwed Up Click over the years. In addition to the syrup-linked deaths of Screw, Pimp C and Big Moe, the crew has seen several of its members murdered, most notably Fat Pat and his brother Big Hawk. Couple that with the lack of recognition received by the S.U.C’s most talented surviving members and it damn sure feels like a curse. I say this to provide a little background into this interview with Z-Ro, in my mind is the most underrated rapper working today. Our conversation mostly sticks to the topic at hand, and doesn’t go too deep into Z-Ro’s own career or his creative process, but it’s a nonetheless revealing chat with a man who, at least according to the Internet, has given few if any in-depth interviews. Far from the aloof misanthrope one might expect, ‘Ro was friendly and engaging and articulated the appeal of Screw tapes better than anyone else I spoke with.
JS: How did you first meet Screw?
Z-Ro: I guess the first time I met Screw, I was not really meeting him but I was a fan of what he did with the music. On Greenstone [Street in Houston], he had a house with a gate around it. The same story everybody knows about—the house with the gate. If you was in Houston, and you was listening to mixtapes, especially around the ‘92, 93 period…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. You could come and get a Screw tape. My homeboy Grady really turned me on to Screw tapes. We’d ride out there a couple of times, with different people every time, just to get a tape. I wanted to go and get this tape, Wineberry Over Gold. So I met him a couple casual times just as a motherfucker buying a tape. My boy Grady was like “Man, you need to get up in that house with Screw and get on that mic because you got something.” I was trying to work my way in so I could get the opportunity do that.
I guess when we first went into the lab and did something it was ‘98. Like some real music, not a freestyle. I was getting him to remix the song “Pimp On” from my first record, Look What You Did To Me. I had him do an intro with him talking some “Get your pimp on, get your money” type of business. But, way before then, I was fucking with some of the people in the Click, like Dat Boy Grace on a day-to-day basis. I met [Screw] about 17 times before we actually just sat down and got it together.
JS: What was the most influential Screw tape to you, the one that really made you say, “This is what it is”?
Z-Ro: My favorite would have to be the one with everybody freestyling on it, [Straight Wreckin’] was the name of that. Back in them times in Houston, it was North vs. South. If you was from anywhere north of the Astrodome, you couldn’t come on the South side and vice versa. It was really a heated, tension-filled time, man. You could get your best lick at a motherfucker through music. Probably the best proof of that was “Hit ‘Em Up”. Right around this time, something had happened, I guess, with Lil’ Keke and one of his cars. This motherfucker just took me really by surprise on this Snoop Dogg beat. The whole CD was a lot of them freestyling and it really caught my fancy because in Screw house, ain’t no such thing as a pen, you had to just go in. When you hit play until the motherfucker stopped, it was just people coming off the top of the dome. Everybody was repping on that motherfucker. Also I gotta go a little further. Ain’t No Sleepin from ‘95 with Big Pokey and Big Hawk. Hawk really got off on some old-school shit.
JS: What was your initial reaction to hearing the music slowed down like that?
Z-Ro: I had to get used to it a little. I was already familiar with it a little because I had a cousin Alex Curry, and I don’t know if the batteries were about to die or if he was doing the shit on purpose, but he used to spin records and that shit used to play slow, slow, slow. I was already accustomed to the sound just on an accidental note. But when I heard it on purpose, your first reaction is, “Nigga, you need some batteries.” But when the mixing and the double beats and the bringing that beat back to the beginning starts going on… I can’t speak for Houston, Texas but [in the] early ’90s I was higher than a motherfucker. Down here in Houston we don’t really do too much dancing or moving fast at all for that matter. You riding down the street, got your little ‘dro—back then you was probably on regular weed—and you higher than a motherfucker. Speaking for me, when that shit comes on a speaker like real slow, at a pace where I can bob my head to it without blowing my high, you were kind of relaxing. Like with Bone Thugs, I wanted to know what they were saying. He’d give you a whole ‘nother type of clarity when you was listening to a Screw tape back then, especially if you was high. I’m not saying overall because motherfuckers got a misconception like you gotta be fucked up to feel a Screw tape and that ain’t it at all. It was just different. The man made his own lane. A lot of people caught on late. A lot still ain’t catch on to it. But just for me
JS: Everybody always talks about syrup but Screw said he was more inspired from smoking. Was that right?
Z-Ro: Yeah, that is a misconception. But anywhere, you’re gonna have folklore. Down South, we don’t get too much music over the tempo of 85 BPMs. Especially in San Antonio, Houston, Austin, surrounding areas, Galveston. You’re not really dancing too much unless you’re a stripper or something like that.
JS: How would you explain that to someone who’s never been to Houston? In New York we do everything fast. Does the pace of life have to do with it?
Z-Ro: Not really, in terms of speed. Like how we were living outside of the car and things like that. Niggas was getting some fast money, getting their head blowed off real fast, their ass whooped real fast, and the police will arrest you and beat the shit out of you just as fast as any other state. But as far as the type of music you was on? You gotta really peep game. It’s like the homage that Pimp C paid to cats like Kool Herc and originators of rap. Everything was a little quicker, but we had to do what the rest of the world was doing until we got our own style. A lot of motherfuckers down here jammed East Coast music.
I don’t call myself a Houston artist ’cause I ain’t really ever did the calm-down type of rap. I’m a fan of it but I was always on some “now” type shit, and I wanted to be different. In the early ’90s, we only had a couple of groups down here that we could say were our own. Everything we had down here wasn’t screwed yet but it wasn’t as quick-paced as the rest of the world’s rap. A lot of people attribute that to people down here being country or whatever. But really it was that we all wanted to make our own lane down here. The first couple of Geto Boys records came out, they had a couple of East Coast members in the group. So the music was more East Coast than Down South. The South didn’t have a sound yet. It was just the Geto Boys, then K-Rino. We had a lot of people flipping the tongue down here before Bone like Street Military. Pharoah and KB the Kidnappa were doing their thing on a slower beat but they were saying so much because they was tongue flipping. But the slower style stuck to us.
If Screw didn’t slow it down, it could have been the other way around—another cat with the quick pace. But Screw’s shit was so different and so new, especially to a motherfucker that’s in the streets doing what they doing. The man tantalized you. He took your favorite song and he slowed that motherfucker down. Me, my favorite song back then was “Friends” by Whodini. When I heard the man slow that motherfucker down… it was like, “Hold up.” It was damn near on some I don’t want to say devil worshipping, cult-type shit but it was so different. If you high, you getting your money and you got your favorite shit playing but it’s playing at a level that’s different to you almost on some hypnotizing type shit, it was one of them thangs. It would have been somebody if it wasn’t Screw to come and do something different. Because motherfuckers try to do different things. But fast-paced music is something most people in this city just ain’t on.
JS: After a while a lot of rappers from Houston, such as yourself, started coming with melodic vocals. Rapping but singing also—like what’s going on now but more street. Who would you attribute that style to?
Z-Ro: The first CD I ever bought for myself was Point Blank’s Prone to Bad Dreams. The singing thing that I modeled myself after really came from cats like Icy Hott, the DJ and producer from Street Military or Klondike Kat who was like the sixth man of Street Military and a solo artist. The type of cat I was, I was real militant, I was belligerent…if you tell me to go left, I’m a go right just to say fuck you. That was the type of cat I was, and they had that militant thing. Especially with a name like Street Military, and you got a cat blasting out some murderous shit but he’s singing it. I was like, “Goddamn I love that shit.” On the flipside, you got Fat Pat. He just starts freestyling and out of nowhere he just starts singing on some Earth, Wind and Fire type of level. It was like, this cat here is cold. And Big Moe did the same. There were so many people down here and so many unsung heroes. We were trying to find a personality and an identity for the third coast.
So you pick it up from them. Especially when I got involved with these cats—personally introduced myself, gave ‘em a demo and then I was chilling with ‘em in studios or at the house with Keke. Way back then, before getting signed. It was just what was going on around me. I didn’t really want to get classified as a Houston artist. I was just really glad ’cause my life was fucked up. And I started hearing these guys singing and it was some thorough, stand-up guys in the street. It wasn’t nothing PH balanced about these cats. Pat would be singing but you know he’ll shoot a motherfucker, everybody was like that. You’re a teenager in the street, you’re at an impressionable age in terms of who you’re going to model yourself after for the rest of your days. It was hard not to emulate what was around you when the shit was so good, you know?
JS: How did you get put down officially with Screw and the Click?
Z-Ro: There was this chick I used to call my sister. Right around that same time, I did a show at this club called Club Unique with Screw’s brother, Al-D. I think it was a Crime Boss concert but they were letting me open that motherfucker up. This was my first time on a stage doing some shit for real.
JS: What year about?
Z-Ro: I want to say that it was Nine-Seven. This girl I was calling my sister used to work at a Shell station on Main and Fondren. And Screw used to go there to the gas station. She was one of those high-yellow chicks with a low cut looking pretty good, and I guess they were getting at each other. At the same time, Al-D was saying, “Screw, there’s this cat here at the club, he’s rapping and singing, and the nigga cold,” this girl was saying, “My brother rapping, he cold.” But you know, you ain’t trying to get no demo out of a chick. You know what you’re trying to get out of a chick. When it got to his attention, it was the early part of Nine-Seven. And a bunch of months went by before we actually did something.
JS: How did someone get put down with the Screwed Up Click? Was it just doing a freestyle on one of his tapes?
Z-Ro: Really, it was basically if the man fucked with you or not. The statement Screw used was, “I might know your name, I might know you personally but if I really don’t know your heart, I really don’t know you.” With the Screwed Up Click, music was really one side. Whether you rap, you sing, you’re a DJ, you make beats or you might work at a motherfucking flower shop, it didn’t matter. If Screw fucked with you personally on any type of level on a continuous basis, you were Screwed Up Click. There’s more people in the Screwed Up Click that are just everyday Joes than rappers. If you called someone my nigga back then, that was an endearment term that you took for real. Everybody that was down like that, he would allow you to call yourself Screwed Up Click. My thang wasn’t freestyling back then. I just wanted to get my real music out there. And Screw was like a radio station. I wanted to get my music on a Screw tape because that was the best way to promote your music back then. When I came around, I didn’t have to do no freestyling, he didn’t put me on the spot. It was some simple shit. Like dude meets A&R, A&R introduces to CEO, CEO listens to music and the business relationship started from there. I gave him the first Guerilla Maab CD. He loved it, and he told me he wanted me to be down with him, and it just went from there.
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Interview: ESG on Screw, syrup and ‘Swangin’
Cedric “ESG” Hill was the first rapper to give the Screw movement some national exposure. The hook for “Swangin & Bangin,’” his debut single, had a slowed-down Public Enemy vocal sample and lines like “Sip syrup, swang and bang, jam nothing but that Screw.” The video, meanwhile, offered an early glimpse of the custom car culture that would come to define Houston hip-hop’s aesthetic, and, just as notably, featured a taste of Screw’s slowed-down remix which, in another first, was featured on the accompanying album, Ocean of Funk. Here, the Everyday Street Gangsta offers a detailed breakdown (without much prompting, really—I kind of just let him talk) of both Screw’s and his own emergence.
JS: When did you first hear about Screw tapes?
ESG: Pretty much everybody met at Fat Pat’s house. We were in the 18-year-old range back then. All the D-boys in the neighborhood would go by. Screw had just started, but no one knew what it was yet. A core group of people in the hood from the South Side would go over to Screw’s to get personalized tapes. You’d have your favorite songs and everybody would say, “Go to Screw’s house, he’ll make your own tape for you.” Nobody was even rapping on the tapes at the time, it was just a personalized mixtape. I had just did“Swangin’ & Bangin,” and we went over there to put it on a tape. Instead of just making a personalized tape, we told him, “Let other niggas hear this shit too.” I got some wax singles made of “Swangin and Bangin,” so he could really do what he needed with it. At that time we had the Kappa Beach Party, which was sort of our own Houston version of Freaknik, and every car that was passing was playing “Swangin’” on their Screw tape. From then on, in our region, nobody wanted the real record.
It was like a cult classic, the way shit was going down here. I remember when “Murder Was the Case” was out, when Biggie came out…They didn’t want the Biggie record regular speed. Everybody wanted the Screw version, because Screw was going to chop it and repeat the best parts of the song. It just became a household way of living down here. When Fat Pat passed, I did a Fat Pat dedication freestyle and Screw sold 4,500 tapes the first week. He had invested in his own pressing machines. It was jumping. Screw was gonna get you the streets of H-Town and all the cities close to Houston. Screw controlled that. Now I can name another 30 artists that was on Screw tapes that you never heard of. So you had to have a little talent to go along with it but in general Screw pretty much got you the streets. Screw made you a household name if you were able to go over there and drop a great freestyle. To be a household name in the city of H-Town, you had to go through DJ Screw or on a major label already.
All different artists would come to Houston on a radio promo run, and they’d try to hook up with Screw. That’s pretty much how the Screwed Up Click was born. Guys like Hawk weren’t even thinking about rapping for real but I used to strive to be more than just a local artist heard on a Screw tape. I’d always be like, “Man, you need to do a real album or a real song.” A lot of people started following the trend. ESG, Fat Pat and Keke, we pretty much kicked all that off. Pokey did it, Hawk did it, all the way to your Z-Ros and Lil’ Os. That’s pretty much the beginning.
Everything wasn’t always real, real slow like people be thinking but we had our own sound, our own swag. We dressed different. We wasn’t just about Dickeys and having the black Raiders hat. We was more fly. At that time it was the Guess Jeans, Polo shirts, the colorful Air Max. The whole Screwed Up Click was just different… I see some of the comments on blogs and the first thing people think of when they hear Screw’s name or Screw music in general, is something real slow, and the syrup sipping. That’s just the culture down here and a way of life. It’s not that everyone who listened to Screw sipped syrup. Everybody listened to Screw down here. All the white kids, Hispanic kids. They weren’t always sipping. It was just a form of music down here that he made everybody love. Some people say Screw just slowed down stuff, he wasn’t a real DJ. They didn’t know about the history of Screw and how he won the Justo Mixtape of the Year award and did an actual DJ competition up there and won first place. Screw would go behind the back, take the shirt off—everything you seen the other great DJs do back then.
JS: But most of the guys in the Screwed Up Click were using drank pretty heavily during that time, no?
ESG: When people talk about sipping, the first thing they say now is, “Screw died from that.” But Screw had already had two strokes. Screw was sick anyway. Just because that might have been one thing in his system, everybody wants to attribute his death to that. Big Moe passed from being overweight. Moe was 600 pounds when he passed. He passed the same way Big Pun passed, but because Big Moe was affiliated with S.U.C., they say Moe died from sippin’. But Big Pun didn’t die from sipping. Pimp C had sleep apnea. If someone dies in our area, you could have 10 different drugs in your system but if you have codeine in your system, that’s the main thing they want to point out. That’s the only bad rap the Screwed Up Click gets. But we’re still here making music and it feels great when you have an artist like Drake re-do “June 27th” and pay homage.
JS: So you were already making music before you knew about Screw?
ESG: That’s one of the differences between me and a lot of other S.U.C. artists. I was a child of hip-hop I’m talking about [being] 10 or 11, I was buying single records so I could record my own demos over the instrumentals. I had a cousin from Brooklyn who’d send me tapes of WBLS. I had other cousins in L.A, and they used to send me mixtapes from different stations. So I knew about all the Treacherous 3s, the Schooly Ds. I got the real knowledge of hip-hop from both coasts. When I was 13, I was doing citywide talent shows. Man, I never had a rap wrote down, I would just go on stage and go off with the band. When I got to 18, I was really trying to make me an album. I had been to a college for a year-and-a-half majoring in communications but that was just something on the side to me. Music was my first love. When I went to Screw, I already had 20 songs done. “Swangin’” was just the first song I gave to him because it really signified our culture, how people was riding down here with the candy paint and the swangas— the elbow of the rims that poke out. People wasn’t really doing songs about it. It’s pretty much giving you a tour of the way that we live down here.
JS: How did you end up on Priority Records for your first album, Ocean of Funk?
ESG: That deal came because we were already selling so many albums independently. We sold over 100,000 copies, independent. Now, there’s not as many fans as there used to be. Every D-boy with a little money goes and gets them a little record label incorporated. At that time, people were able to pay attention more to the music. Unfortunately I was into other things at the time and I got incarcerated. And that’s when Priority picked up the album.
JS: What did you go to prison for?
ESG: I had a murder charge that got dismissed because it was actually self-defense. Some jackers had broken into our house and me and the guy fought over the gun he had, and while we’re fighting over the gun, I managed to take the gun from him and I shot and killed him. When the police come they found an AK under the bed. So they immediately said y’all must have been selling drugs out the house for these dudes to come and rob. We weren’t even hustling out the house but they’re seeing all the candy cars, they figure we got a bunch of money in the house. By this time we was corporate Gs. We was actually selling a bunch of records. This was music money. So I had to do two and a half years. I got out at the end of ‘97.
JS: “Swangin & Bangin’” had a hook that was slowed down. Were your producers heavily influenced by Screw?
ESG: The producer Shawn Solo, he definitely wasn’t into Screw music. He was in college at the time. For the sample to be on time, we had to slow Chuck D’s voice. That’s all that was. But then I let Screw mix it up and we did an actual real Screw version of it on the album. By the time Screw got it and slowed it down, it was almost like an ultimate Screw sound. No one had ever put a Screw song on a real album that could be purchased in stores. Screw before could only be heard off the tapes. Now, somebody could go in a real record store and buy a real album with a song they like that’s chopped and screwed up.
JS: Now, you hear a lot of original production where producers are slowing the sample deliberately to give it that Screw feel. When did that start to seep in, in Houston?
ESG: Every artist who would do songs would immediately try to get to Screw’s house to let Screw do a version of it. To let Screw chop it up and slow it down so they could put the version on their album or their tapes with the song on there. They didn’t do the Screw part in the hook songs, they actually would take the songs to Screw. When I got out in ‘97, it was such a big influence that every other unknown DJ was trying to talk like Screw. Like, the way Screw would say, “Knowhatimtalkingbooouuut.” It was almost one word the way Screw would say it. At that time, the Screwed Up Click was so deep. There are so many people affiliated with S.U.C, that are not rappers, just hood cats. They would literally go out and find these DJs emulating Screw, and be out to whoop they asses. I know one DJ, I won’t even say his name, and Screw must have chased him three, four different times. Around ‘98, ‘99, people weren’t even tripping on tapes as much. Everybody wanted CDs. And that’s when Michael Watts hit the scene with Swisha House. A lot of the major labels weren’t sending out wax. Everybody was switching to CD. I used to tell Screw, “Man, the dude Michael Watts is getting newer instrumentals than we getting because he’s getting CD singles.” That’s when CD mixers were coming out. But Screw would not change. I can imagine if Serato was out when he was living, he would not do it. It was strictly turntables.
JS: How did you feel about VH1’s Hip-Hop Honors not acknowledging Screw in their Southern rap tribute?
ESG: Bunch of bullshit. And not just not mentioning Screw but goddamn… you had Bun B on there but there really wasn’t no Suave House. Tony Draper played a big role in Houston, too. You left out Suave House, Screwed Up Click, the list goes on. JaMarcus Russell gets caught sippin’ and you got clips of DJ Screw and the whole Screwed Up Click on ESPN. And VH-1 Hip-Hop Honors couldn’t give us nothing? You could give us a few minutes, just a mention in there. Something. If you look at Houston and you you look at Paul Wall, Chamillionaire, Lil’ Flip, Mike Jones, Slim Thug. Any artist that ever came out of H-Town, if you wasn’t with the Geto Boys or Suave House, you were directly or indirectly influenced by DJ Screw. All the songs Paul Wall had that was hits were Screw influenced and had Screw tape samples on them. And we cool to this day—he on my new album. If I would have even been invited to the Hip-Hop Honors I wouldn’t have felt right if I was going over the script and I didn’t see Screw’s name mentioned. Can you at least put this guy’s picture
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Part of the original wave of Screwed Up Click freestylers along with Lil’ Keke, Big Moe and Fat Pat, Big Pokey has a special place in Screwed Up Click history thanks to his central role in the most legendary of all Screw recordings, the June 27th freestyle. The one-time college football player later released several solo albums, beginning with 1999’s Hardest Pit in the Litter. More recently (Okay, not that recently), Pokey had a cameo in Paul Wall’s breakout-era Houston theme song “Sittin’ Sidewayz,” the hook of which featured his sublimely evocative June 27th line, “Sittin sideways, paused in a daze/On a Sunday night I might play me some Maze.” Here, he breaks down the process of making a Screw tape, recalls the creation of June 27th and explains Screw’s role in breaking the Hot Boyz.
JS: How did you first meet Screw?
Big Pokey: I first met him at a party my homegirl had at this club, and he was the DJ. And then I met him again at his house with my homeboy. It was him, me and Haircut Joe from the June 27th tape. We went over there to talk to him about doing a tape. And from then, we hit it off.
JS: What year was that?
BP: When I first met him had to be like ‘92.
JS: Was word already out about DJ Screw in ‘92? Was he already very well known?
BP: Yeah, this was [when I was] in high school. He had tapes, a little buzz.
JS: What did you think of the music slowed down when you first heard it?
BP: I thought that was the livest shit ever. It had a different sound, and it sounded good because you could understand the words where [at regular speed] it might take you a couple times to catch on. And then the way that he used to chop the beat up and bring it back and just be creative on the turntables with it…I hadn’t heard nothing like that.
JS: So he would make all his tapes by special request, right? How did you go about arranging to have a tape made?
BP: You’d come over there [to his house], and you’d submit your list of songs you wanted to put on your CD to him. And, if you wanted to rap on your tape, he’d leave some room at the beginning and some room at the end. He’d tell you a certain time to come through or whatever, and then you’d go in there and freestyle on the last part. He’d add that part to it, slow it down, tell you to come back in an hour or two and the tape would be ready.
JS: When did the name Screwed Up Click come into being?
BP: Around the time everyone was doing tapes and freestyling, everybody around the city really took to it and before you know it, it started really blowing up for real. People were getting familiar with Lil Keke and Fat Pat and Big Hawk and Big Pokey and Big Moe. Those tapes were really going, and there were so many tapes. In the midst of that, Mike D. came up with a group called Southside Playaz. Originally that was supposed to be Pat and Mike D. Then it became D.E.A., which was me, Hawk, KK, Keke. These were just rappers, but then they ended up combining Southside Playaz and D.E.A., and made that one D.E.A. project. And we just called ourselves Screwed Up Click. But the Screwed Up Click is bigger than just rappers. There’s people a part of this movement that you don’t see, behind the scenes, that don’t rap. There’s a lot of people that really ride for the cause and represented. Screw was a good person who touched a lot of people’s lives.
JS: Who was the first person, as far as you know, to rhyme on a Screw tape?
BP: It would have to be probably Pat and then Keke after that. There were other people who probably rhymed on a Screw tape but never pursued the rap game.
JS: Do you remember the first tape that you did?
BP: Me, a pimp called Haircut Joe and my partner did a tape called Make Dollars Flow. Me and Haircut Joe did a freestyle on an Above the Law beat I think. That was probably about ‘93 or ‘94.
JS: Where would the freestyles be recorded?
BP: At Screw’s house. He had this room in the back where he had DJ equipment and all his albums. That was his lab. We would come in that motherfucker, and he’d be making a tape and we’re just jamming, listening to songs and hearing how Screw’s chopping it up. We’d be sitting in the back room with him and it might come to a part where we might want to flow on this beat. Well, we would get up, grab the mic, say something and then pass the mic. When we finished that, he’d go back to the rest of the tape and get it done. That’s where it all went down.
JS: A lot of the tapes conveyed the feel of a party. Like someone pressed record at a barbecue…
BP: When you were making your tape, you might got your niggas in there with you. You might bring a couple folks from your hood, and you’re enjoying yourself and shit like that. You might not be rapping but you might be talking on the end, giving your hood and your niggas a shoutout. Yeah, you’re right it was kinda like a party vibe.
JS: What about June 27th. What was going on that day?
BP: My partner Big D-Moe from Longdrive, that was his birthday. He was doing a tape for his birthday and he named it after the day. He had his list together and people he wanted to rap on his shit. Me and a couple of my partners ended up stumbling through there when that was going on. D-Moe said, “Pokey get on the tape, it’s my birthday woo-woo-woo.” And that ended up being one of the hottest tapes ever. That was at Screw’s house, and yeah it was like a party. There were so many people, it was standing room only.
JS: What would you say was the intent most people had when getting Screw to make a tape like that. Was it something to play at a party?
BP: It’s just a memory but it’s something to put on the streets at the same time. To go over to Screw’s house to make a tape, that was big—like I said, a lot of people wanted to get in there. To have your tapes circulating in the streets… you might run into some people and they might be like, “I got the tape y’all did.” Your birthday tape would be all over the street when it was just something you did for your birthday. Some people would do a tape in memory of somebody that passed away. It might not be something that you went and did that night but when somebody passed, you would just dedicate that tape to them.
Today, June 27th is Screw’s most legendary tape. Was it considered a classic in Houston right away?
BP: I can’t say. It was a hot tape, it was jamming and a lot of people were getting it. Screw had so many tapes. Throughout the years it never died down, still people really like that tape, and that’s how it became a classic. People kept playing it and would go back to it, and then when the June 27th date would come back around people would pull out the tape. Even after Screw passed and his tapes were just left of his legacy and his memory that was one of the hot tapes that was out.
Why do you think it came out so good?
BP: It was a jamming beat number one. There was a lot of people on there going off, and you had Moe singing and introducing people. It became a household item— everybody was listening to it. You’d hear people passing by you in their car, and they jamming that motherfucker. And that was when Yungstar made his debut. Therefore you had a different sound than with the same people normally rapping on there. Yungstar did real good on the B-side, so a lot of people liked that too. I was on there and people liked me on that, too. Everybody got a chance to go off on there and do something. When you listen to it you can just feel that it’s a party atmosphere. Everybody’s having a good time. One thing about Screw is he would introduce people to a lot of new music. Screw had a lot of the new shit before everybody else and he was putting us on to people like C-Bo. All the new, hot shit. When the Hot Boyz came out, Screw put us on that. When he had the album, he’d say listen to it and see what song you want to get off on off there. But one thing he wouldn’t do is slow their whole shit down. He would at least let the album come out and run its course first. So he wouldn’t interrupt the sales of people’s albums. But in the same sense, he was giving them a fanbase and turning people on to them, by putting new shit out there that people hadn’t heard. Making people want to hear more.
JS: Somebody told me he was responsible for breaking Cash Money and the Hot Boyz in Texas and outside of New Orleans, really?
BP: He was. His tapes covered so much ground and a lot of people would hear songs off of a Screw tape they didn’t know. So he was introducing them to the world. People would listen to a Screw tape and then go get another song by the person they heard on the tape. Before you know it, that shit was getting sales because of us.
JS: When did you start to notice Screw’s influence going beyond Houston?
BP: I played football so I was out of town. I was playing at a junior college and then I ended up playing at Abilene Christian. I was down there playing in Abilene, and after practice we had a meeting, watching film. The basketball coach had recruits coming in and one of their top recruits was a big Screw fan, and he found out somehow that I was going to school where he was coming to take a visit. The basketball coach asked if it was OK if the dude coul come in and meet me. He was real excited about that. That let me know this shit here is somethng else. It’s spreading. Before you knew it we was building up a fanbase that we didn’t even know about. That’s why, when it came time for us to go mainstream, we had a hell of a fanbase so we came in the game moving 50,000 to 100,000 units independently. I hadn’t ever thought of myself as a rapper. I never thought that rapping would be paying my biills in a million years but Screw had told me to get on my pen and I started fucking with it, and I’m glad he did.
JS: How come there never was a Screwed Up Click album that came out?
BP: When we came in the game [on a] mainstream [level], everybody was really pursuing their solo careers, trying to establish themselves. But when it came time for me to do my shit, I wanted Screw to drop mine. I was like, “I didn’t come all the way here to do an album and not share this with you.” And Screw’s thing was, “Pokey, man, do your thing. I’m just glad shit is going in your favor and you got an opportunity to do what you want to do but I’m doing what I love to do.” Screw’s thing was: I’m a mixtape DJ, that’s what I love to do. Turning niggas on to new music. He didn’t want to be no CEO. Think of all the talent he had. We’d have had a hell of a label. But that wasn’t nothing he wanted to do. And you gotta respect that.
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ich hoffe es gibt welche die richtig dicken sound haben, liebe screw stuff zu sehr.
