"But instead of just coming on out there," Watts continues, "we would rather do something that's fun for the community, like do a showcase. We don't want to make it like you have to go to school on Saturday, or something like that. We want to make it fun."
But no one cares about some hip-hop guy and a show attached to a health cause. That's how it reads on paper, a hip-hop artist putting on a show attached to a health cause. Right?
Courtesy of Michael "5000" Watts
Swishahouse Records co-founder Michael "5000" Watts now blends Houston raps and dubstep beats for "trillstep."
Details
3rd Annual "Don't Sleep on It" Youth Health Expo
With DJ Michael "5000" Watts, Killa Kyleon, MPS, 1040 Boyz, Beat King, Big Wood, D Boss and the Swishahouse Family, 1 p.m. Saturday, May 12, at Fifth Ward Multi-Service Center, 4014 Market, www.dontsleeponit.org.
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It's tempting to dismiss the show as another artist treating a social cause like a hobby, as they go about driving million-dollar cars and sleeping peacefully on Egyptian bed linen. People take celebrity causes about as seriously as they do windshield flyers and sex pills.
One thing that makes Watts's effort hard to dismiss, though, is that the man doesn't bullshit. He doesn't try to sell you anything. Plus, his goals seem to extend beyond self-interest.
For example, when our conversation shifts to S.U.C. vs Swishahouse, i.e., the entanglement of legacies by virtue of Watts building his career on a style DJ Screw clearly invented, he does what anyone who thinks bigger than himself would do: Give huge credit where it's due.
"Honestly, man, if it wasn't for DJ Screw doing what he did, there wouldn't be a Swishahouse," Watts says. "This was directly created off what he had started."
You should care because, when we ask why he picked health awareness to push, he doesn't spout some noble horse dung about the importance of Doing Good and Changing the World, he gives us facts. Depressing facts. And — if you care about these things — a little research courtesy of CDC.gov turns up some numbers that back up the gravity of Houston's syphilis problem:
5: Houston's rank among all U.S. cities for new cases.
2: Where Texas ranks on reported cases of syphilis
1/3: Fraction of all Houstonians with new syphilis infection who also have HIV.
1: Harris County's rank among all Texas counties in congenital syphilis.
1: Houston's rank on reported cases of congenital syphilis in infants.
When we suggest that this concert could be perceived as a publicity coup for Swishahouse, Watts doesn't vehemently deny it or respond with a defensive quip. He simply reminds me that the purpose of the show is to lighten the mood for the kids, and that yes, it's publicity for everyone involved.
He has a point. It's publicity for the Department of Health, the SEAC, everyone trying to make a positive impact in the city.
Houston is already an influential city in rap, as Drake and A$AP Rocky will tell you. Is the city capable of leading the war on STDs? Watts certainly hopes so. He does end the discussion on a hip-hop note, offering a word of counsel to the new generation of Houston rappers.
"Don't be scared to go outside the box and do something different," he says. "I always get asked, 'How can I be successful like Swishahouse was? We doin' the same thing that y'all doing, but it's not working.'"
He has an easy answer: "It's already been done."
"Different" for Michael Watts and Swishahouse these days starts with a T-word. The label boasts its own dubstep DJ, a guy named Badbwoy BMC, who helped usher in the new sound on the aptly titled mixtape Welcome 2 Trillstep. A new batch of original material will follow this summer.
Will Watts find the antidote to Houston's commercial slumber of late? Who knows? For now he's content to help Houstonians make smarter health decisions, wheeling an ailing city in the right direction one trillstep at a time.
