Lil Scrappy / Trillville (Split) - Chopped and Screwed

Genre hip hop Publisher Reprise/Warner Bros/BME External Links Official Site Warner Bros

Surely the the "Screwed and Chopped" sound must constitute the strangest subgenre in popular music today. A "Screwed and Chopped" record is made when a normal full-length album is slowed down by about 1/2 and given minimal remix treatment (a scratch here, a reset there), creating a sensation of the music playing in slow-motion. Some might argue that the movement started in roughly 1980, when children across America (or at least this one here) rocked a Chipmunks "Jingle Bells" 7-inch on 33 1/3 instead of 45 to hear Alvin and his buddies' voices get all Barry White. In its modern incarnation, though, the movement started in the mid-to-late '90s when a Texas D.J. named Screw found that slowed-down records went over much better with audiences hammered on a cheap concoction made from mixing cough medicine with alcohol (what the kids call "sizzurp"). The music has its roots in bootlegs (not even white labels so much as cassettes), so it's always strange to see an album like this Lil Scrappy / Trillville split coming out on Warner Brothers Records.

In full disclosure, I have never heard the original unscrewed versions of these songs, although I am certain that Trillville's sentiment on the track "Some Cut" - "I'm gonna follow that ass in the mall / take you home, you can juggle my balls" - is as heart-meltingly romantic no matter what the speed.

Lil Scrappy's songs cover the same sort of ground as Trillville's - lots of boasting about girls and partying, seasoned with a liberal peppering of signature "yeah!"s and "what?!"s and "okays" courtesy of benefactor/producer Lil Jon - but I found them to be a bit more tired then Trillville's (either that, or I found myself unable to get past the fact that The Scrapper opens his side of the liner notes with shout-outs to both "The Lord Jesus Christ" and "All the faggots I had to slap to get here").

"F.I.L.A." is an appealing tribute to Hotlanta (asserting hometown pride apparently falling just below gay baiting and attacking haters on the crunkgenda) and another entry in a rich history of awkward hip-hop anagrams (it stands for "Forever I Love Atlanta").

Several tracks were recorded at Outkast's Stankonia Studios, and, miraculously, the tiniest speck of the Big Boi/Dre magic managed to rub off on this effort, at least in the production of the beats. Lil Jon layers synth "whooshes" on top of tinny pianos in "Get Some Crunk in Yo System," calling to mind the eerie Goblin soundtracks of Dario Argento's films. "Bitch Niggaz," which contains some kind of a shout out to Danny Glover that I was ultimately unable to decipher, has a propulsive bounce that still manages to sound obscenely enthusiastic at ½ speed.

Reminding myself that I have no delusions about being in the target fan group for this disc (I traditionally take my Robitussin from a little plastic shot-cup, just before bedtime, rather than from a bejewelled crunk goblet), I can concede that as a party record goes, Scrappy and Trillville definitely know their way around an "oookkkkkkaaaayy!"