Chopped and screwed (sometimes called screwed and chopped or slowed and throwed) refers to a technique of remixing hip hop music which developed in the Houston hip hop scene in the 1990s. This is accomplished by slowing the tempo down to between 60 - 70 quarter-note beats per minute and applying techniques such as skipping beats, record scratching, stop-time, and affecting portions of the music to make a "chopped-up" version of the original.

Preceding the early 1990s, most Southern hip hop was upbeat and fast, like Miami bass and crunk. In Houston, a different approach of slowing music down, rather than speeding it up, developed. It is unknown when DJ Screw definitively created "screwed and chopped" music: although people around Screw have indicated any time between 1984 to 1991, Screw said he started slowing music down in 1990. There is no debate, however, that DJ Screw invented the music style." He discovered that dramatically reducing the pitch of a record gave a mellow, heavy sound that emphasized lyrics to the point of almost storytelling. After messing around with the sound for a while Screw started making full length "Screw Tapes". At first the music was only referred to as "Screw music", was limited to the South Side of Houston, and was seen as laid-back driving music. As Screw's tapes started to gain popularity he started selling his tapes for around $10. Screw was known to feature some of Houston's most renowned rappers from the South Side. This eventually led to the formation of the Screwed Up Click.

Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr. (born September 27, 1982), better known by his stage name Lil Wayne, is an American rapper. At the age of nine, Lil Wayne joined Cash Money Records as the youngest member of the label, and half of the duo, The B.G.'z, with B.G.. In 1997, Lil Wayne joined the group Hot Boys, which also included rappers Juvenile, B.G., and Young Turk. Hot Boys debuted with Get It How U Live! that year. Lil Wayne gained most of his success with the group's major selling album Guerrilla Warfare, released in 1999. Also in 1999, Lil Wayne released his Platinum debut album Tha Block Is Hot, selling over one million copies in the U.S.

Although his next two albums Lights Out (2000) and 500 Degreez (2002) were not as successful (only reaching Gold status), Lil Wayne reached higher popularity in 2004 with Tha Carter, which included the single "Go D.J." Wayne also appeared on the Destiny's Child top ten single "Soldier" that year. In 2005, the sequel to Tha Carter, Tha Carter II, was released. In 2006 and 2007, Lil Wayne released several mixtapes and appeared on several popular rap and R&B singles. His most successful album, Tha Carter III, was released in 2008 and sold over 1 million copies in the U.S. its first week of release. It included the number-one single "Lollipop" featuring Static Major. It also includes the singles "A Milli" and "Got Money" featuring T-Pain and won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album.

Quincy Matthew Hanley (born October 26, 1986), better known by his stage name ScHoolboy Q, is an American hip hop recording artist signed to Top Dawg Entertainment and Interscope Records. Hanley is a member of Black Hippy along with Jay Rock, Kendrick Lamar and Ab-Soul. In a 2011 interview when asked about what encouraged him to start rapping, Hanley explained that it was something he was "born to do": "I was just chillin’ man, but rapping’s just something I was born to do. I don’t know when I started rapping. I don’t know how I started rapping, but I know I wrote a verse and I was stuck ever since," he explained.

Preceded by two mixtapes, his first independent album Setbacks, reached #100 on the US Billboard 200 chart in 2011, selling close to 1,000 digital copies in the first week. On January 14, 2012, he released his second independent album Habits & Contradictions. The album debuted at #111 on the US Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 3,900 digital copies in the United States.

Kendrick Lamar Duckworth (born June 17, 1987), simply known as Kendrick Lamar, is an American rapper and songwriter from Compton, California currently signed to Top Dawg, Aftermath and Interscope. He first gained major attention after the release of his 2010 mixtape Overly Dedicated. In 2011, his album Section.80, released exclusively through iTunes, instantly ranked as one of the top digital hip hop releases of the year. Lamar has amassed a large internet following, is a member of hip hop collective Black Hippy, along with Jay Rock, Schoolboy Q and Ab-Soul, and has worked with Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Wiz Khalifa, Game, Drake, Busta Rhymes and Tech N9ne among other popular artists.

Tauheed Epps (born September 12, 1976), better known by his stage name 2 Chainz, formerly known as Tity Boi, is an American rapper from College Park, Georgia. He was previously signed to Ludacris' record label Disturbing tha Peace with Dolla Boy as Playaz Circle.

2 Chainz was born Tauheed Epps on September 12, 1976. He was originally known under the name "Tity Boi", a name given to him by his mother, as Epps was an only child and thus the only one his mother would breastfeed. Further research and investigation showed that he had one brother named Dimatri who was 9 months younger than him and adopted by a couple in Birmingham, Alabama. His brother has one daughter named Sakia and one son named Dimatri Jr. nicknamed, DJ. His niece, Sakia is 13 (2011) and his nephew, DJ is 2 (2011). His niece is very proud of her uncle and talks to him alot on the phone. She also loves to visit him on her breaks.

His graduating record in college was a 4.0

Epps formed the hip hop duo Playaz Circle (the word "Playaz" being an acronym of Preparing Legal Assets for Years from A to Z) in College Park, Georgia in 1997 with his high school friend Earl Conyers, who became known under his recording name Dolla Boy. Following the release on an independent album titled United We Stand, United We Fall, the duo were introduced to fellow rapper Ludacris when he moved into their College Park apartment complex whilst he was acting as a disc jockey: after he took an interest in Playaz Circle, he began to record several songs with the group, playing some of them on his radio station.