Biography
Throughout the bulk of the 1990s, DJ Screw operated as a notorious figure restricted to Houston, Texas, until abrupt fame arrived shortly before his untimely passing in late 2000. The Houston DJ earned recognition chiefly through an idiosyncratic mixing approach that slowed his records to a heavy, unsettling tempo. During that decade the once-novel technique turned into a profitable enterprise, yielding hundreds of mixtapes—some estimates placed the total above one thousand—which he sold from his local outlet, Screwed Up Records and Tapes. He chose to issue nearly all of these mixes on cassette alone, yet listeners frequently duplicated them for online trading, and numerous “screwed” versions of well-known rap tracks circulated widely on Napster through his devoted audience.
Screw’s standing would likely have differed without his vocal endorsement of “syrup sippin’,” the Southern rap practice of consuming codeine-laced cough syrup that produces a disorienting slowdown in perception and a swirling of the senses. Just as marijuana shaped early-’90s gangsta rap, LSD influenced late-’60s psychedelic rock, and ecstasy defined late-’80s rave culture, the syrup advocacy embedded in Screw’s hypnotic hip-hop recordings sparked a modest drug trend inside the late-’90s Dirty South movement. That trend peaked with Three 6 Mafia’s hit “Sippin’ on Some Syrup” in 2000. Several of his tape titles—Syrup & Soda, Syrup Sippers, Sippin’ Codeine—underscore how closely the phenomenon intertwined with his popularity, yet he also guided Houston’s expanding rap community. His home studio, The Screw Shop, served as headquarters for the loosely organized Screwed Up Click, whose locally known members included Big Pokey, Lil’ Keke, and roughly thirty others.
On the morning of November 16, 2000, the 30-year-old artist suffered a fatal heart attack inside his studio. The Houston Chronicle initially reported that authorities believed he had overdosed on the very syrup he promoted; weeks afterward the suspicion was confirmed, rendering him a casualty of the trend he had championed. The greater misfortune was the setback to Houston’s still-developing scene, then poised for wider recognition as a Southern rap center. His signature mixing technique, however, proved impossible to contain, spawning numerous Southern imitators by the time of his death, most prominently the Swisha House and Beltway 8 record labels.
Screw’s standing would likely have differed without his vocal endorsement of “syrup sippin’,” the Southern rap practice of consuming codeine-laced cough syrup that produces a disorienting slowdown in perception and a swirling of the senses. Just as marijuana shaped early-’90s gangsta rap, LSD influenced late-’60s psychedelic rock, and ecstasy defined late-’80s rave culture, the syrup advocacy embedded in Screw’s hypnotic hip-hop recordings sparked a modest drug trend inside the late-’90s Dirty South movement. That trend peaked with Three 6 Mafia’s hit “Sippin’ on Some Syrup” in 2000. Several of his tape titles—Syrup & Soda, Syrup Sippers, Sippin’ Codeine—underscore how closely the phenomenon intertwined with his popularity, yet he also guided Houston’s expanding rap community. His home studio, The Screw Shop, served as headquarters for the loosely organized Screwed Up Click, whose locally known members included Big Pokey, Lil’ Keke, and roughly thirty others.
On the morning of November 16, 2000, the 30-year-old artist suffered a fatal heart attack inside his studio. The Houston Chronicle initially reported that authorities believed he had overdosed on the very syrup he promoted; weeks afterward the suspicion was confirmed, rendering him a casualty of the trend he had championed. The greater misfortune was the setback to Houston’s still-developing scene, then poised for wider recognition as a Southern rap center. His signature mixing technique, however, proved impossible to contain, spawning numerous Southern imitators by the time of his death, most prominently the Swisha House and Beltway 8 record labels.
Albums
