Remembering the Life and Legacy of Michael “5000” Watts

Watts gave Paul Wall, Slim Thug, Mike Jones, and Chamillionaire a home base. Then he gave Houston the world. He pioneered the chopped-and-screwed aesthetic that defined Houston's rap identity.

Michael “5000” Watts died on the evening of January 30, 2026, at Memorial Hermann Hospital in The Woodlands, Texas. He was 52, and the people who mattered most to him were at his side. Watts co-founded Swishahouse Records, directed Houston’s chopped-and-screwed movement from neighborhood cassette decks toward major-label distribution, held down a nightly slot on 97.9 The Box, and discovered a group of rappers—Paul Wall, Slim Thug, Mike Jones, Chamillionaire—whose ascent carried the city’s name across the national map in the mid-2000s. In a scene densely populated with DJs, producers, and executives, he filled all three roles for nearly forty years and treated each with equal gravity.

The cause was torsades de Pointes, a rapid and volatile heart rhythm that triggered sudden cardiac arrest. Watts had been admitted to the hospital two days prior, on January 28, after what his family described as serious health complications. He is survived by his wife, Tammie Watts; his five children; and two grandchildren. In a statement released Friday, the family wrote that they “truly appreciate the love shown to Michael throughout his career” and asked for “continued prayers as we navigate through this very hard journey.”

Watts peddled his first mixtapes in Houston’s Homestead neighborhood at 14. By 1997, he and OG Ron C had launched Swishahouse as a grassroots operation on the city’s North Side, a purposeful counterweight to the South Side tapes DJ Screw had been circulating for years. Where Screw invented chopped and screwed—slowing tracks to a drowsy crawl, warping pitch until vocals acquired a narcotic grain—Watts packaged the style for nationwide sale, brokering a distribution deal with Asylum and Atlantic Records. His “After Party” and “Swisha Mixes” compilations ferried Houston voices to ears that had never been within a hundred miles of Texas. Swishahouse hit its commercial zenith between 2004 and 2005, when “Still Tippin’,” featuring Slim Thug, Paul Wall, and Mike Jones, traveled from regional anthem to radio staple without sanding down its edges. Through all of it, he shouldered the duties of disc jockey, producer, broadcaster, and executive simultaneously, sometimes cycling through all four before sundown.

News of his death drew responses from across the rap world within hours. Swishahouse co-founder OG Ron C, in a public statement, called Watts a “cultural architect” who “believed in ownership, creativity, and the power of storytelling through sound.” Slim Thug and Paul Wall, who had urged fans to pray for Watts days earlier when his hospitalization went public, were among the first to mourn openly. Bun B, Trae Tha Truth, Juicy J, DJ Paul, Drumma Boy, Maxo Kream, and Dorrough Music all followed, their tributes circulating through social media alongside personal accounts of how Watts had altered their own paths or sharpened their sense of what Houston could accomplish in rap. A community gathering to honor his life is expected to be announced in the coming days.

When a 14-year-old Watts was pushing tapes through northeast Houston, the city’s hip-hop barely registered outside the I-610 loop. By 2005, Swishahouse artists were charting nationally, and the slow-drip, bass-weighted production style had begun filtering into pop, R&B, and experimental music far from Texas. That gap did not close by accident. Watts gave local rappers a commercial home when no one in New York or Los Angeles showed particular interest in building one, and he ran it without relocating or softening the output. The slowed-and-chopped vocal treatments he helped bring to market still surface routinely in contemporary hip-hop. The conviction he instilled among artists and fans—that Houston belonged anywhere, that its cadence and tempo deserved a worldwide audience—did not expire with him. Michael “5000” Watts is gone. The city he spent his life broadcasting keeps sounding at his tempo.