September 01, 2022

LITM Extra - Phantom Power Podcast Episode Swap: 'Screwed and Chopped'

34 minutes

As listeners will know, we've come to the end of our series on Afro-Psychedelia. Tim and Jeremy will be back soon with a whole new series, but in the meantime Love Is The Message is very happy to share 'Screwed and Chopped', an episode from the archive of the Phantom Power Podcast.

Phantom Power is an excellent podcast about sound, sound art, music, and the scholarship that surrounds it. It's beautifully put together and is a real treat for the mind and the ears. Host Mack Hagood was kind enough to share an episode of ours with his listeners recently, and we're happy to return the favour with you today.

If you like what you hear, do check out the back catalogue at PhantomPod.org, or search wherever you get your podcasts.

'Screwed and Chopped' features an interview with folklorist and Houston native Langston Collin Wilkins, who studies “slab” culture and the “screwed and chopped” hip hop that rattles the slabs and serves as the culture’s soundtrack.

Since the 1990s, many of Houston’s African American residents have customized cars and customized the sound of hip hop. Cars called “slabs” swerve a slow path through the city streets, banging out a distinctive local music that paid tribute to those very same streets and neighborhoods.

Wilkins shows us how sonic creativity turns a space—a collection of buildings and streets—into a place that is known, respected, and loved.

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