I contributed three entries for Texas Monthly’s 20 Essential Texas Rap Tracks feature, writing about UGK’s “Touched,” Lil’ O’s “Can’t Stop” featuring Destiny’s Child, and “Still Tippin'” by Mike Jones featuring Slim Thug and Paul Wall.
I grew up on Texas rap music and was a teenager during the time of Houston’s massive explosion onto the scene in the mid-2000s, so this story was especially meaningful for me to work on.
Check out my entries below and read the full Texas rap story here.
1996
“TOUCHED” by UGK
It’s hard to overstate the importance of UGK’s Ridin’ Dirty, a golden album for a golden year of Texas rap —which is why we’re choosing a second song from it. What makes it so special? Where the Geto Boys put Houston on the national scene by using New York–style beats, UGK perfected a distinctly Texas sound. Ridin’ Dirty is a blaxploitation film on wax that details the highs and lows of street life, and almost every song boasts its own legacy.
Produced by N. O. Joe, “Touched,” the album’s seventh track, features a lyrical hook lifted from the New York rap duo Mobb Deep (“Speak the wrong words, man, and you will get touched”) sung in a sly, mischievous cadence by the Houston rapper Mr. 3-2. Unlike most of the tracks in this list, it boasts a sultry beat—a funky bass line, bouncing hi-hat, subtle wah-wah guitar, and a tinny synth—that was created with live instruments. The music’s confident strut provides the perfect score for Bun B and Pimp C’s lyrical bravado.
When a man whose girlfriend Pimp C has just stolen vows to get revenge, Pimp C strikes preemptively, and ferociously: “Fool you talkin’ loud but you move too slow / Tellin’ n—as all your plans, got you tied up in a van.” But it’s Bun B who delivers the blistering lines that have taken on a form of immortality. “Now, once upon a time not too long ago / A n—a like myself had to strong-arm a ho / Now, this was not a ho in the sense of having a p—y / But a p—y having no g-ddamn sense, tryna push me.”
These lyrics appear, word for word, in Jay-Z’s 2003 megahit “99 Problems.” And those weren’t the only lyrics from Ridin’ Dirty Jay repurposed that year: he spat a slightly altered version of Bun B’s closing lyrics on another track, “That’s Why I Carry,” for the Memphis Bleek song “Murda Murda.” In case anyone missed the homage, Jay-Z’s very next line is “A lil’ UGK for ya, Port Arthur, P-A for ya.” Jay-Z has always been open about his love of UGK; three years earlier, he enlisted the duo for his platinum track “Big Pimpin’,” which went platinum.
UGK proved that Third Coast rap wasn’t just catching up to the East and West Coasts. They set the stage for the Texan sound to become its own driving force. —SAMA’AN ASHRAWI
1997
“CAN’T STOP” by LIL’ O FEATURING DESTINY’S CHILD
Did you know that Beyoncé and DJ Screw appeared in a music video together? And that it was her first music video? And that it was one of the few on-screen cameos he ever made? And that it was probably—at that point in her then-young career—the professional highlight for the woman who now has more Grammys as a performing artist than anyone in history?
“Can’t Stop,” by the Nigerian Houstonian rapper Lil’ O, first introduced Queen Bey to the world. When O was getting his start in music, his aunt introduced him to her friend Mathew Knowles, who agreed to manage him and quickly got him signed to MCA Records. For the recording of “Can’t Stop,” O felt the hook needed a female voice, and Knowles saw an opportunity, bringing in Destiny’s Child, a girl group fronted by his daughter Beyoncé. Lil’ O sounds so confident on the track—rapping about the years he spent as a street hustler and the pain of his mother’s passing—that you’d never guess it was his first single. But it’s the future Sasha Fierce who kicks things off, singing the opening lines in her unmistakable mezzo-soprano.
While the regular-speed version received a fair amount of airplay, the song didn’t become a Houston hit until DJ Screw slowed it down and included it on a tape titled Chapter 52: Only Rollin’ Red, allowing listeners to better appreciate O’s story.
The video, made by New York director Dwayne “DC” Coles, was shot at the southwest Houston nightclub Jamaica Jamaica. O, realizing that no act since the Geto Boys had been given the opportunity to rep the city in such a way, called up some heavy hitters. DJ Screw, Fat Pat, and Willie D make appearances in the video, as does Beyoncé, seen repeatedly behind the wheel of a car. During a phone interview, O remembers fondly how he, Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland, LeToya Luckett, and LaTavia Roberson (the latter two would soon be booted from Destiny’s Child) all met their Houston rap heroes at the video shoot. The girls were in their late teens, and O had yet to turn 21.
“These were my homegirls who were singing on the song,” says O, smiling through the phone. “We was just hungry kids doing our thing, man. This was our big break, and it just so happened to make history.” —S.A.
2004
“STILL TIPPIN” by MIKE JONES, PAUL WALL, SLIM THUG
If you had to make one—just one—mix CD to define the rush of rap hits that came out of Houston in the 2000s, this is the song that would kick it off. It has every element you could want: a beat from Salih Williams, who crafted quintessential tracks of the era for Paul Wall, Bun B, and Pimp C; scratches from Swishahouse label head Michael “5000” Watts; and career-defining verses that double as lessons in H-Town slang from three breakout stars: Mike Jones, Paul Wall, and Slim Thug.
On paper, the beat seems as if it would never work: a simple drum line, bells sampled from Whodini’s “I’m a Ho,” a hook taken from a Slim Thug freestyle, and a violin loop from, I kid you not, the William Tell Overture. But the track is so much greater than the sum of its parts. It’s a perfect song.
Slim Thug’s booming baritone saunters through his tinted windows; Jones’s penchant for repetition connects him to the blues singers of yesteryear, who would repeat specific lines to emphasize a feeling; and Wall delivers one of the most prophetic rap lyrics of all time, boasting, “I got the internet goin’ nuts” years before social media transformed the way we consume music. On the strength of this song alone, not to mention the rest of their catalogs, all three rappers have become living legends in Texas.
Seventeen years later, fans have only grown more fond of “Still Tippin’.” It resurfaced recently on the Queen & Slim soundtrack and as a backing track for J. Cole’s viral LA Leakers freestyle. Plus, at least once a year someone on Twitter sparks a spicy debate over who had the best verse. The answer, of course, depends on: what day it is, what kind of mood you’re in, and whether you’ve heard the original version, which features a verse from another Houston titan, Chamillionaire, in place of Wall.
That version, with a beat from producer Bigg Tyme that’s faster and funkier than the famous one, was released on a Rap-A-Lot Records compilation earlier that year. It was held back and usurped by the better-known version only because Watts and Bigg Tyme had a falling-out. If it hadn’t been for the dispute between those two men, Williams may never have gotten the chance to bless us with that timeless beat. That’s enough to make you believe in a higher power, or at least something like fate.—S.A.
Read the full Texas rap story here.