Image via Ray Tamarra/Getty Images
Steven Louis Bobblehead Night has been rescheduled.
“Still Tippin’” was one of my favorite songs in 2005, and it’s one of my favorite songs as I type this up. The Slim Thug-Mike Jones-Paul Wall triptych is unassailable. Its strings wobble and croak, almost in reverse. The Escalade fleet shuts down Southlea and Cresthill. Each verse is its own candy-paint gemstone. The enduring line might be “blowing on that indo, GameCube Nintendo.” Rightfully so. But for folks like me that had Who is Mike Jones? (Screwed & Chopped), there’s another bar that rings eternal:
“Michael Watts, he made me hot / hard work took me to the top.” Houston’s breakouts were repping Swishahouse with trenchant force. That diamond chain with the tilted rooftop meant something, the same thing, from Gulf Bank underground to MTV rotation. Watts, or “5000,” was the label’s co-founder. He also served as its coach and cut-master, like Rudy Tomjanovich with a double cup. DJ Screw pioneered the sound; Watts kept it alive, enhanced it and put it on the Hot 100.
Watts died Friday at the age of 52, his family confirmed in a statement. He’s survived by his wife, five children and many Swishahouse teammates. He suffered from Torsades de Pointes, a condition causing sped-up and irregular heart rhythm. It’s an exceptionally cruel fate for a DJ that slowed and throwed his work.
Then again, Watts spent his whole career succeeding counterclockwise. He made a hit machine in Houston when the rap industry was obsessed with Atlanta and New York. He made songs longer while American attention spans were microwaved.
As a kid, I bought four of Watts’ official remix albums on iTunes — Jones’ plus Ying Yang Twinz, Three 6 Mafia and, of course, Tha Carter II. His “Mo Fire” rework became my natural hallucinogen. The Swishahouse run of 2005 was an all-time win for the underdog. I’m grateful for Michael Watts’ contributions. May we all approach sound with his mix of coolness and curiosity. The world moves a bit slower in his absence.
From Tigray to D.C. to LA comes Sideshow, a brilliant writer with a stilt in his raps. This latest is his zig-zag treatise atop the most challenging beat I’ve heard in some time. The downbeat drags behind grand piano keystrokes, before everything funnels into a muffler, then back out again. It’s crowded until it’s solitary. Seriously, Alexander Spit, take a bow. After five production credits on Wicked Man’s Reprise, he and Sideshow remain on a same undetectable frequency. Nimble to the ninth power, the emcee finds new ways to shape his output — “you need advice or you need a weapon” is both riddle and refraction.
TIGRAY FUNK is due Feb. 27. Song titles include “MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE” and “WHAT KIND OF ANIMAL ARE YOU?” Answers await us at the end of the month.
More off-center flows with hidden meanings and direct sedatives. “Crews Pop” is a pinball machine glitch with traces of Harold Melvin around the bumpers. Shabb continues to surge, thanks to the balanced breakfast of Montreality Jewels & Gems (they look like crunch-berries). The blurry delivery belies the sharpness of his schemes. “Search bar,” “dirt ball” and “shirt off” work internally because he wills it. The Quebecois is a generous host for this home-and-home, but the nomadic Niontay holds his own here. He weaves within the drum sequence and makes peace with the “commodities” in his love life. We can tell how hyped he is for these Canadian dollar bills, which are red 50s and gold hundreds. All of it is well-earned.
I don’t know what this is, but I like it. Weston seems to be a New York City high schooler that just passed the state’s Regents Exams. Iso is his producer, and a damn good one at that. “This cougar bumping my music, her and my mama turn 50 the same year / I pray that I beat my case, remember my papa told me I’m staying there.” Again, I need more information, but the feeling is present. Maybe it’s an elaborate Harmony Korine preview, or a video essay on Mamdani’s Manhattan, or a flex about Regents Exams.
We rely on your support to keep POW alive. Please take a second to donate on Patreon!
