Chopped & Screwed

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I’m about 10 years late, I know, but I finally discovered (via Claire Chanel and Burncopy.com) the amazing “Screwed & Chopped” genre, which emerged in the Houston hip-hop scene in the 1990s. It’s based on slowing down the tempo and applying techniques such as skipping beats, record scratching, stop-time, and effecting portions of the music to make a “chopped-up” version of the original. It may not come as a surprise that the consumption of large amounts of weed and especially “lean” or “purple drank” – a mixture of cough syrup containing codeine and promethazine, soft drinks and Jolly Rancher candy, very popular in the hip-hop community of the southern United States – has something to do with the development of that particular style. Slowing down songs and beats was supposed to recreate its effect. The style was invented by one Robert Earl Davis Jr., a.k.a. DJ Screw. “One day he picked up a Mantronix album — that’s the first thing I heard [slowed down],” remembers Big Bub, who runs Screwed Up Records & Tapes. “He played it at a slow pitch and really liked the way it sounded. He kept messing with it, messing with it, and about a year later, he made a [whole] tape all slowed down.” Devin the Dude (cool name!!) says: “He slowed it down so the bang would be a little harder and deeper. When the music was like that, you could just creep and ride around all night.” Originally, this process involved mixing two copies of the same record, slowed down either on the turntables using pitch shift or, later, through use of an after-mixer device. Phasing, flanging and echo effects were originally the result of the two records being played at millisecond intervals. The result is a heavy, drowsy groove that, over the last 15 years, has exerted a major influence on Southern hip-hop culture, and beyond. Guys like Lil Wayne even release special Chopped & Screwed versions of their records. Check out the documentary ‘Screwed in Houston’.

I really like the ghostly, alienated qualities of some of these ‘Chopped & Screwed’ remixes (in the same way I like some of the stuff of William Basinski, The Caretaker or Saule – you should check out what this guy from Brussels does with James Last records). Here are some examples I dug up on YouTube. I’m sure there’s better stuff out there (tips anyone?).

This is Karthik Pandian’s ‘Slow Jamz’ (2006), in which he applies the logic of “screwed” music to video, manipulating the speed and duration of footage of Michael Jordan. Described by Pandian as an elegy to pop-cultural phenomena of the past and obsolete media formats, the video is made up of several clips from the 1987 NBA Slam Dunk Contest, digitized from VHS tape by an anonymous Internet user and downloaded by the artist. The footage was then slowed down and the original soundtrack replaced with a version of Kanye West’s song ‘Slow Jamz’, “screwed” by Pandian.Also interesting: Claire Chanel’s interpretation of Screwed & Chopped, R&B tunes stretched to the edge of aural legibility.

[audio:http://clairechanel.com/tripleslow/aaliyah-i_care_4_u_(triple_slow_screw).mp3]
based on Aaliya, ‘I care 4 u’

[audio:http://clairechanel.com/tripleslow/ciara-promise_(triple_slow_screw).mp3]
based on Ciara, ‘promise’

And, finally, this is Claire Chanel Music remix of the video for ‘Stay Fly’ by Three 6 Mafia, “distilled to obsessive repetition”.