New book on hip-hop legend DJ Screw to be released next year

A new book on hip-hop legend DJ Screw is set to be released next year. ‘DJ Screw: A Life in Slow Revolution’ is slated to hit stores on 19th April 2022. 

The University of Texas Press is behind the title, which is written by Lance Scott Walker and based on no less than 16 years of in-depth research into the iconic artist, real name Robert Earl Davis Jr., who was known for a ‘chopped and screwed’ mixing and production style. A pivotal figure in the Houston hip-hop scene until his death on 16th November 2000, he was the leader of the Screwed Up Click artists collective, alongside Big Hawk, Lil’ Flip, and Big Moe. 

According to an interview with Walker in Rolling Stone magazine, the book features more than 130 different voices, which come together to help tell the story of DJ Screw, whose influence, the article explains, can be heard in everything from Travis Scott to Solange Knowles. Pages span his formative years spent studying his mother’s record collection, the creation of more than 350 era and scene-defining mixtapes, and his untimely passing as a result of a codeine overdose, aged just 29. 

“What’s beautiful about the story of DJ Screw is there’s so many different ways to tell it,” Walker told Rolling Stone, citing a slew of other projects focused on the Houston-born artist, and the Texas city’s hip-hop scene. “I’m so excited that Houston’s got a crop of young writers that are doing great work down there: Brandon Caldwell, Shelby Stewart, Maco Faniel, Rocky Rockett, Julie Grob, and Shea Serrano’s in there because he did so much chronicling of the Houston hip-hop scene. I’m happy with how much stuff I was able to get in the book, but I’m happy that it’s not the final word.”

Last year it was confirmed that director Isaac “Chill” Yowman was working on a biopic series based on the life of DJ Screw. Revisit our feature from earlier this year on 9 classic hip-hop documentaries to watch online.