Chopped & Screwed
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Houston vs Memphis: Two Slow Traditions

Chopped and screwed and Memphis underground slow rap share a lineage but developed independently and sound different. Houston's screwed style was created by DJ Screw in the early 1990s as a DJ technique — he physically slowed records on belt-drive turntables and created "chops" by manually spinning vinyl back. The result was a thick, hypnotic sound associated with lean (promethazine and codeine) culture in Third Ward Houston. Memphis slow rap, by contrast, was recorded slow from the source — DJ Paul, DJ Zirk, and Kingpin Skinny Pimp recorded on 4-track cassette decks at naturally low tempos, often below 70 BPM, creating a lo-fi, horror-adjacent aesthetic that emerged from Orange Mound and North Memphis.

Modern Phonk and the Memphis Connection

Modern phonk emerged in the 2010s when producers, many from Russia and Eastern Europe, began sampling Memphis underground tapes — particularly hi-hat patterns, 808 bass, and vocal chops from Three 6 Mafia and DJ Paul productions. The "drift phonk" subgenre, popularized via TikTok and YouTube car culture content between 2020 and 2024, pushed the tempo even slower (often 60–80 BPM) while emphasizing distorted 808s and chopped horn stabs. KORDHELL, Ghostemane's earlier work, and producers like Pharmacist represent the Memphis-to-phonk lineage. The original Memphis underground artists are increasingly recognized by the phonk generation, driving renewed interest in the original cassette tape catalog.