Sure enough, many of the MCs -- the "Heads," if you will -- do manage to pay their respects to the fallen master without sounding like slick-as-shit poseurs. Lil' Flip and Shasta get the ball rolling with "Still' Bangin' Screw," a steady track that has Flip slyly displaying his braggadocio while respectfully pledging his gratefulness to Screw: "Thanks to my nigga Screw / I got my shine on / Now my nigga gone / So I got to rhyme strong."
Big Pokey & Chris Ward give off perhaps the most openly emotional vibe on the album with the track "I Miss My Dog." You very rarely hear a brotha say something like Pokey's "I don't know if I told you I love you / But nigga, I do" unless he truly means it. The volatile "Under the Floor" is the album's most memorable track, with 2Pac sound-alike Zero giving his regards in a bleakly nihilistic manner: "At least my nigga didn't get taken out by a shot to the dome."
But a few MCs spend their time preening when they should be giving their props. On "The Young & The Wood," throwed young playas Yungstar & Wood shower themselves with praises and give inappropriate shout-outs to their own playalicious lifestyles. And although they may be card-carrying Screwed Up Click members, the Botany Boys basically do a sound-off of all the shit they own on "What's Up." One of the Boys spits: "Screwed Up Click / We the shit / We the kings of hip-hop." That may be, but they really should've saved that little nugget for one of their own albums.
Even with those two tracks sticking in the spokes, Screw Heads is a sincere and even entertaining tribute to one of Houston rap's dearly departed muthas of invention. Consider this collection a wake, with rappers coming together to tip their lean-filled Styrofoam cups in remembrance of those who aren't here.
