Swishahouse is a Houston, Texas based independent, southern rap record label started by DJ Michael “5000” Watts in the early 1990s. Its name comes from a Freestyle rap by former Swishahouse rapper Lil’ Mario. Acres Homes/Homestead/North Houston is where many of the current/former artists hail. Slim Thug and Chamillionaire also gained fame with the Swishahouse label but have gone on to form their own labels (Boss Hogg Outlawz and Chamillitary, respectively), however the former has maintaned affiliations with Swishahouse as a crew.
Swishahouse started in the late 1990s in north Houston as a response to the popularity of screwed and chopped music from Houston’s south side. () Hip-hop fans on the north side wanted to hear their local artists on slowed-down releases. Swishahouse began distributing popular mixtape series such as The Day Hell Broke Loose and F-Action (which featured chopped and screwed versions of R&B songs). The huge independent sales of their mixtapes led them to create the motto “Major Without A Major Deal”. Due to the volatile Northside/Southside Houston beef, many Northside fans of screw music couldn’t listen to Chopped & Screwed.
Thanks to the success of “Still Tippin” (a song that was originally featured on The Day Hell Broke Loose 2), Swishahouse was able to sign a deal with Asylum Records to gain national distribution. In addition to chopping and screwing Swishahouse’s releases, Michael Watts has recently been commissioned to screw and chop several southern rap albums such as the Lil Jon and the Eastside Boyz’ Crunk Juice, Slim Thug’s Already Platinum, Dem Franchize Boyz’s On Top Of Our Game, and Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter II. Mike Jones became the first Swishahouse artist to release a major label album with Who Is Mike Jones?, which was released in April 2005 and went on to sell over a million copies. Jones is planning a follow up album, tentatively titled The American Dream, which is slated for release on Valentine’s Day 2007.
Paul Wall’s major label debut, The People’s Champ, landed at the top of the Billboard charts at the time of its August release. During late 2005, Mike Jones left Swishahouse, allegedly after a dispute over money with owner Michael Watts. Jones fired his Swishahouse manager T. Farris and is now managed by Rap-A-Lot Records.
However, contracts dictate that Jones still owes albums to Swishahouse, and recently Jones got back on good terms with Swishahouse to distribute Ice Age. The label is also in talks with anime giant & native Houston company ADV Films for an Anime Screwed & Chopped Megamix series. Swishahouse released it’s long anticipated compilation album The Day Hell Broke Loose 3 on October 17th, 2006. It is sold in stores in two different formats: The normal version, which has a red cover, and the Swishahouse Remix (Screwed & Chopped), which has an icy blue cover.
Discography
