Remembering Houston hip-hop pioneer Michael ‘5000’ Watts

Houston hip-hop lost a legend on Friday with the death of DJ Michael “5000” Watts.

Watts, 52, was the pioneering producer and founder of the Swishahouse record label and helped launch the careers of rappers like Mike Jones, Slim Thug and Paul Wall.

He was one of the people most responsible for spreading Houston’s signature chopped and screwed sound, a technique to produce a slower, twitchy beat.

Lance Scott Walker, an author of two books about Houston’s hip-hop scene, joined the Standard to discuss Watts’ legacy. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.

This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:

Texas Standard: I was watching the Grammys Sunday and, like so many, saw Michael Watts in the segment honoring people we’ve lost. And this just happened a few days ago.

So what was your reaction to learning the news?

Lance Scott Walker: Shock, definitely shock because you just never expect something like that.

But, you know, it’s also been that’s kind of a theme in my work. We’ve lost a lot of people since I started writing about Houston rap music.

Well, Watts is, as we said, one of the founders of Houston’s Swishahouse record label. Briefly tell us about the label significance for those who may not be familiar with it.

It’s hugely significant because while DJ Screw was an underground star and his tapes went all over Houston, Watts had a different approach to it.

With his partner OG Ron C and with their business partner G-Dash, they were doing things that DJ Screw wasn’t that really helped to popularize the genre and that wasn’t what Screw had in mind. Screw was underground guy and he wanted to do everything on cassette and that was his vibe, that was his art.

But with Swishahouse, you know, they approached things differently. They put stuff on CD, they were on the radio, they were on internet, they’re selling t-shirts, they had kind of a different business plan to it and so that ended up becoming really, really tremendously important.

Slowing and chopping music I think is really a matter of feel, you know. I think a great slow and chop DJ is really like a great drummer. You know, they’re back there, they’re cutting extra little rhythms into the songs. You know, they’re winding things back that they want to hear.

So they’re pointing to things in the lyrics and they’re also pointing to things in rhythms. And I think that that can be a really huge influence and also a partnership with the rappers. And so you’re talking there about Slim Thug, Paul Wall, Mike Jones, Chamillionaire, Magno, Archie Lee, a lot of artists that were were under Michael Watts’s wing.

Watts, I think, was proof that the genre can grow wings and that other artists can put their imprint on that and have their personality come out into the music.

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Well, if there’s one song you would point people to as an example of Watts’ style, what would it be? I know that may be hard.

Well, “Still Tippin'” is the hallmark song. That’s the one that everybody points to because that’s one that brought Houston rap music to the mainstream. I think that the way that music is kind of spread out because of the internet, because of what happened back then, we’re talking 20-something years ago with MySpace sort of bringing music out there.

I think what was happening in Houston, especially under Watts’ watch, was sort of a pressure cooker of talent that was building up over the years. And when that talent exploded in the form of the song “Still Tippin'” in 2004-2005, it swung a lot of attention towards Houston. You could see that kind of national and international mainstream attention coming to Houston.

And because of the way that we’re connected now, I just don’t think you’re ever going to see that again. I don’t think you’re going to see the kind of intense focus on one scene, one city. You know, I think everything is just… Everybody’s kind of from everywhere now.

And so I think that the whole Swishahouse movement and everything that built off of what DJ Screw and before him, Darrell Scott was doing, I think has really carried the genre on into new depths that other artists have continued to explore for the last, you know, 20-something years.

So why do you think this music, Watt’s music, became such a phenomena?

Well, you know, you certainly had the branding is certainly a part of it. Swishahouse is very good at that and they, like I said, they had different ways of bringing their music to the masses and different ways of connecting to it.

And also, you know, they’re very prolific. So there’s a lot of it to experience. There’s a lot of it to get into. And there’s a lot of, you know, it wasn’t just the mixes, but also Swishahouse was producing albums by different artists and so the albums would come out and then you’d hear the Swishahouse mix – the slowed and chopped mix.

So I think that it’s just a very fertile ground and I think somebody mentioned in one of my books that slowing music down makes it more emotional. Maybe that’s one of the ways that people connect with it and certainly when you’ve got somebody out there who’s out there championing the genre, championing the city and all those artists that would be underground artists if it weren’t for that, I think that people really latch on to that and they’re really dedicated to that music and certainly everybody has been and can will continue to be with Swishahouse’s music.

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Well, where do we see Watts’ influence in music in 2026?

Well, I think Watts and Screw, you know, you have to think about them together because they were building from the same city and they were building from, no template, really, but I think you’re going to continue to see that influence in the mainstream.

Whether or not people know that that influence is coming from DJ Screw and Michael Watts and even before that – you know, DJ AK-47, DJ Bone and Darrell Scott – there are a lot of people who are doing that kind of music. Whether or not they understand that that music comes from Houston and comes from those artists remains to be seen, but I’m certainly doing my best to make sure they do know that.

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