Chasing a Deal: DefJam
As “Still Tippin” was slowly climbing up the charts, Houston began getting more recognition on the rap scene. Houston represented one of the last frontiers for commercial rap and we were starting to see the equivalent of a gold rush for major labels looking to sign artists from H-Town.
Rapalot’s GetoBoys, Lil Troy and, in the previous 2 years, Lil Flip had all had national success, but Houston had never had multiple artists with established regional followings.
SwishaHouse was up first. In the late nineties, Michael ‘5000’ Watts and OG Ron C learned from their previous mistake of not signing the first generation of Swishahouse artists. They’d built up Paul Wall, Slim Thug and Kameleon, now going by Chamillionaire, so after Ron C left Swishahouse there were no more informal agreements meaning that everyone would have to sign contracts. So by the year 2000 Watts with his new partner TFarris signed Mike Jones and Magnificent to be the new flagship artists for Swishahouse. Mike Jones would bring a simple animated, energetic and braggadocious flow and Magnificent, who would sometimes go by Magno, would bring his punchlines and lyrics to the duo.
By 2002, Swishahouse had garnered attention from major labels Magno and several other artists from the original Swishahouse had fallen to the wayside leaving Mike Jones with his hypnotic flow which included saying his name repeatedly and shouting out his cell phone number and Paul Wall had come back to the label after parting ways with Chamillionaire over business concerns. Swishahouse tapped top graduate Slim Thug to remake a song that had previously been released on “The Day Hell Broke Loose part 2” and began pushing the song via mixtapes. It was a reunion of sorts with Paul Wall and Slim Thug on the track along with newcomer Mike Jones. The slowed down sample sounded like woozy horns played between the thumping bassline and the screwed down hook served as an ode to DJ screw and Texas. This style of chorus would influence choruses in urban and pop music for the next 3-5 years. Swishahouse had opened the door for Texas and soon it would be blown off of the hinges.
As the song started to spread, A&Rs started to scour the city looking artist and an A&R from DefJam who was familiar with the Houston market flew us out to try and get a deal. This A&R would go on to work with several Houston artists and eventually Fetty Wap.
We hopped out of the taxi, entered the lobby and went up several dozen floors. When the elevator doors opened the A&R took us to a conference room where we sat for several minutes before LA Reid and several executives came in with big smiles and sat down across from us.
The A&R explained how Chamillionaire had an established fanbase that he gained through years of mixtape releases and was looking for a label deal to put out his brother Rasaq and childhood friend 50/50 Twin.
LA Reid shook his head matter of factly and asked Cham to perform one of his most popular songs.
Cham looked confused, but stood up and performed “My Money Gets Jealous”. He started with the hook and did the first verse.
LA Reid seemed to like the hook, but appeared to lose interest during the verse. “What else you got?” he said, swiveling in his chair.
Cham looked confused again and started to perform “N Luv Wit My Money”. Once again he started with the hook and LA Reid seemed to be liking it, but halfway through his verse his voice started to mumble and slowly trailed off into silence.
The executives looked confused and the A&R started to look red in the face and embarrassed. Chamillionaire tried to gain the crowd back on his side by performing some of his underground hits from “before the kappa” and “Mixtape Messiah”, but LA Reid had already lost interest. LA Reid was flirting with one of the female executives while they exited the room leaving Chamillionaire performing in front of uninterested suits and the A&R with his jaw on the floor.
Later, that evening we had drinks with the A&R who was throwing them back like a sailor. After each shot he would close his eyes shaking his head before putting his face in his hands.
Rasaq tried to cheer him up “It’ll be OK. It probably wasn’t the right label for us anyway. They clearly aren’t familiar with the Texas sound or know anything about my brother and isn’t LA Reid an R&B guy? Why is he in charge at DefJam?”
On the cab ride back to the hotel, Chamillionaire said “I’m not even trying to sign a deal. Let’s just keep doing what we’re doing and we’ll put out mixtapes for Rasaq and Twin.”
“Cham. The mixtape game is dying. Rasaq and I are working on original music so that once you drop we’ll have material ready to go.”
Rasaq added, “Houston is coming like a wave. Everyone is going to sign to majors. Swishahouse, Paul and Mike Jones are just the beginning. You don’t want to get left out and miss a big opportunity.”
Later that night we got word that Slim Thug had just signed with Interscope. Several weeks before Pharrell of the Neptunes had come to Houston and got on 97.9 the BOXX asking “Where is Da Boss? I heard that there’s a rapper named Slim Thug who runs the rap game in Houston. I need him to come up to the radio station so I can check him out because I want to sign him.”
We thought nothing of it when it happened, but apparently Slim went up to the radio station and began negotiating a deal.
When we got back to Houston we got back in the studio to start recording and Chamillionaire starting taking calls knowing that it was now or never. We needed to get a record deal if we wanted to ride the coming Houston wave.