DJ Screw’s original mixtapes hit streaming platforms for the first time this year, and Houston is throwing him a birthday tribute Aug. 8 at the George R. Brown Convention Center. But his real legacy already lives inside songs millions of people stream every day without knowing where the sound came from.
Robert Earl Davis Jr., known as DJ Screw, built the chopped-and-screwed technique in a South Houston bedroom studio in the early 1990s, slowing records down and looping vocals into a woozy, syrupy sound. He died in 2000 at 29, but that sound has quietly shaped mainstream hip-hop for two decades. Here are five hits that prove it.
T-Pain, “Chopped and Screwed
“Chopped N Skrewed” is the second single off his 2008 album “Three Ringz,” released on iTunes Sept. 22, 2008, before hitting U.S. stores Sept. 30. T-Pain produced the track himself and wrote it with Ludacris, who features on the song, and an official remix later added R. Kelly. What makes this one different from everything else on this list is that T-Pain didn’t sample DJ Screw or shout him out in the lyrics. Instead, he used Auto-Tune to mimic Screw’s actual techniques inside the production itself: the hook stutters and repeats the words “chopped” and “screwed” the way Screw would chop a vocal loop, while the beat slows down the way Screw would screw a track’s tempo. T-Pain bridged the gap between underground Southern hip-hop culture and commercial pop.
Travis Scott, “R.I.P. Screw”
“R.I.P. Screw” is track four on “Astroworld,” Scott’s blockbuster 2018 album named for the demolished Houston amusement park he grew up visiting. The song features Swae Lee and was produced by FKi 1st alongside Scott, released Aug. 3, 2018, through Cactus Jack, Grand Hustle, and Epic Records. Scott name-checks DJ Screw directly in the lyrics, along with Pimp C and the Screwed Up Click, and references pouring promethazine, the codeine-based cough syrup tied to Screw’s death. The track even samples a clip of Screw’s own voice saying “Southside,” plus audio from a 1998 Houston newscast about his rising local influence, meaning listeners are literally hearing Screw himself on a song that has been streamed hundreds of millions of times.
Drake, “Over My Dead Body”
Drake’s Houston debt runs deeper than most fans realize. “Over My Dead Body” opens his 2011 album “Take Care,” produced by longtime collaborator Noah “40” Shebib and released Nov. 15, 2011, on Young Money/Cash Money. The track’s intro directly samples DJ Screw and Houston rapper E.S.G.’s “Sailin’ Da South,” the opening track from Screw’s own mixtape “3 ‘N Tha Mornin’, Part II.” That means the first sound fans hear on one of the most acclaimed rap albums of the 2010s is Screw’s voice, chopped and slowed exactly the way he intended. Two years earlier, on his breakout 2009 mixtape “So Far Gone,” Screw received a posthumous production credit on “November 18th,” which samples Screw’s chopped-and-screwed remix of Kris Kross’ “Da Streets Ain’t Right.”
A$AP Rocky, “Trilla”
Rocky’s 2011 mixtape “Live.Love.A$AP” leans hard on the chopped-and-screwed sound, and “Trilla” says so out loud. Its hook includes the line “It’s called chopped and screwed,” a Harlem rapper crediting Houston’s signature style in his own breakout material. A$AP Rocky’s music shows a strong influence from Houston’s DJ Screw, especially through chopped-and-screwed vocal effects and collaborations with local legends, including “Get Lit” and “Purple Swag: Chapter 2.” Rocky went even further on “Purple Swag (Remix),” bringing in actual Houston legends Bun B and Paul Wall as guests.
Justin Bieber feat. Jaden Smith, “Maserati”
Justin Bieber’s track “Maserati” connects to DJ Screw through a direct chain of hip-hop homage and production sampling. The track borrows its musical DNA from Drake’s 2009 song “November 18th,” which was crafted as a direct tribute to the Houston hip-hop scene. Drake’s song heavily samples the iconic 1997 “June 27th” freestyle tape mixed by DJ Screw, as well as the DJ Screw-produced track “Pimp Tha Pen” by Lil’ Keke. By using these specific melodies and rhythmic structures, Bieber and collaborator Jaden Smith linked “Maserati” to the slowed-down, chopped-and-screwed production style pioneered by DJ Screw in Houston in the 1990s.
Megan Thee Stallion, “Bigger in Texas”
No artist on this list wears the connection more proudly than Megan Thee Stallion. “Bigger in Texas” opens “Megan: Act II,” the expanded edition of her album “Megan,” released Oct. 25, 2024, and outlets including Rolling Stone and Vibe describe the song’s beat as explicitly chopped and screwed. The Houston-born, Grammy-winning rapper co-directed the music video herself alongside Julian Klincewicz, and it plays like a hometown reunion: Geto Boys member Scarface, Slim Thug, Paul Wall, and Sauce Walka all appear on camera, alongside jeweler Johnny Dang, a fixture of Houston’s rap scene for two decades. The video opens with the song’s title rendered in the diamond-encrusted font style associated with Pen & Pixel, the Houston design house behind classic Southern mixtape and album covers in the 1990s and 2000s. It also features “slabs,” the candy-painted, customized cars riding on oversized “swanga” rims that are a signature of Houston car culture, rolling slowly through the frame in a nod to the same unhurried pace Screw’s music was known for.