There’s a reason Paul Wall is called “The People’s Champ.” Several, actually. Not only is the Houston rap icon a Southern gentleman, but he also truly cares about his community and the people in it. Before exploding on the scene with “Sittin’ Sidewayz” in 2005, he was bubbling in the Houston underground as both a DJ and rapper.
Hailing from the Northside neighborhood of the sprawling metropolis, Wall attended Jersey Village High School and the University of Houston, where he studied mass communications for three years. But music was calling. After doing promotions for Cash Money and No Limit, he eventually linked up with Swishahouse founder Michael “5000” Watts, who signed him to the small, independent label, home to fellow Houston natives Lil Keke, Chamillionaire, Slim Thug, and Mike Jones. After grinding for years, which included selling mixtapes out of his car, he released his major label debut via Swishahouse/Atlantic Records, The People’s Champ, which topped the Billboard 200.
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The lead single, “Sittin’ Sidewayz” featuring Big Pokey and produced by T Farris, took Wall’s career to unimaginable heights. Although it didn’t hit No. 1 on the Hot 100 (it peaked at No. 93 and No. 34 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Chart), it exposed Wall to a wider, mainstream audience. That, in turn, put him on Nelly’s radar and they collaborated on the platinum single “Grillz” that same year, his first No. 1.
Nearly 20 years later, Wall has evolved into a successful entrepreneur, running his Grillz business with celebrity jeweler Johnny Dang and endorsing products he believes in. Most recently, he helped launch Paul Masson ICE, a collaboration between Wall and Paul Masson Brandy. The liquor’s alcohol by volume sits at 59PF, a reference to the 5900 block of Southlea Street in Houston, where Wall lived when he released The People’s Champ.
“Me wearing grillz and it being part of my brand and who I am, it’s not like I’m promoting something that I’m not down with or is not part of my lifestyle,” Wall tells SPIN. “I was a walking billboard for my business.
“It can be dangerous if you’re being encouraged or paid to promote something that you’re not about at all or don’t even really care about. If you’re just there for the check, you kind of become a whore for whatever brand is cutting you the check. And to me, I’ve always looked for some type of longevity or loyalty on my end of whatever brand I’m dealing with.”
SPIN spoke to Wall about “Sittin’ Sidewayz” and how it shaped his future as well as the star-studded video starring Bun B, Jim Jones, and Three 6 Mafia’s DJ Paul and Juicy J.
A “Pinch Me” Moment
It was 2005, so I’d have been writing the song at 24. I remember being in the studio with T Farris and him giving me the beat and saying, “Check this out. This is your song right here. We’re going to put Lil Keke and Big Pokey on it.’ Those are my two favorite rappers. It was like, “OK, bet.”
This is like a dream come true type of moment for me to be able to have them on my song and it’d be my song. And then the sample that was the hook was such a classic song [“June 27th” by DJ Screw & Big Pokey]. Where the sample for the hook came from, it was now a song that I’m on and I’m a part of.
When One Door Closes…
It felt very iconic for myself as an up-and-coming rapper, because I had success and some failures, so it was a roller coaster at that time. We had extreme success in the underground, but when me and Chamillionaire, when we went our separate ways, I was getting told no left and right from every single record label in Houston. Not a single record label would sign me. They’d be like, “Yeah, man, we fuck with you Paul, but we just can’t sign you. We can’t see how we can make it work.”
They were like, “You and Chamillionaire, we can make it work, but just you by yourself, I don’t know.” T Farris was the only person, period. It was like, “Man, I don’t know. Your best days ahead of you. I feel like you better when you on your own.’” And he felt like Chamillionaire was better when he was on his own, too.
He said, “Man, this is better for both of y’all. This is like meant to be. Your best days ahead of you, not behind you. I believe in you.” He would befriend me and encourage me when everybody else was like, “Nah, you better go back to DJing and passing out flyers and stick to selling grillz.”
Welcome To Swishahouse
One day, he was like, “Hey, look, I want to tell you something. I’m not trying to recruit you. And this don’t change our friendship. If you say no, if you don’t do it, it doesn’t change anything, absolutely at all. But I just want to let you know that the door is always open to the Swishahouse.”
He was like, “I talked to Watts, I talked to G-Dash, they both got the same love for you I do. We don’t want to pressure you or nothing, but if you ever want to sign to Swishahouse or do something on Swishahouse, the door is always open.” And shit, I don’t know if they knew, but that was the only door open.
I built so much trust with T Farris. Him being so honest with me about stuff, I just really felt like whatever he suggested, whatever he tells me, I was going to do it. He’s the one who brought me the “Sittin’ Sidewayz” beat, “Still Tippin’” and “Girl.” He is such a dope producer.
Then The Suits Stepped InI wasn’t surprised [by its success]. Even if you take me off the song, it’s still a hit with just Big Pokey or with Lil Keke’s verse, which got taken off. Lil Keke’s verse got taken off ’cause neither one of them were signed artists and the label we were signed to, Atlantic, was like, “Look, you can put one of them on it, but you can’t put both of them on it.” We just didn’t have a choice.
I fought them every step of the way. I’m like…man. This is my favorite rapper of all time, still to this day, but especially at that time. It hasn’t changed one bit, only grown. But I was like, “You mean you’re telling me my favorite rapper can’t be on the song?”
They didn’t understand the importance of who his was or his significance to the culture or Houston or to that song in general. They didn’t care. They’re just a major record label and they’re like, “We’re not gonna build them up to go get signed by a competing record label or for him to get signed by us and now he wants a billion dollars. If he was signed to us, he could be on it. You can pick one.” I was heartbroken, but it was what it was. So it was like we’ll take Keke off and put Keke on the remix, but we never ended up doing a remix.
Houston Steps Ups
It was very iconic—all the slabs and all the cars that came out that were in the video. It really meant a lot to me personally. All those locations were personal locations to me, so it meant something. This was my first-ever solo video, where Paul Wall is the main artist. Dr. Teeth, who directed it, absolutely killed it. He nailed it. Him working at BET for so long, he knew what they were looking for and him being just so capable, his skills, he just knew how to pull the whole vision together. It was a dope moment for me.
$$$
I don’t even know [what the budget was] because they probably wouldn’t tell me. If they did, I would have been like, “Nope. Cut that.” I’m not wasteful when it comes to that. If I see $50,000 being spent on anything, I’m like, “Hold up. We can’t do that.” I want that $50,000 check for me.
“What It Do”
Hands down, it took me to another level. There’s my Swishahouse fame in the underground and there’s my mainstream fame. Even if there wouldn’t have been a “Sittin’ Sidewayz,” I would have had some of that. But with “Sittin’ Sidewayz,” what it did was, that was the first time that I actually had a Southside cosign. Big Pokey being from the Screwed Up Click, him giving me that cosign was the ultimate cosign. Because he didn’t do a lot of songs with people like that on that level, with a video and all of that. Like if you just want to pay me for a verse, that’s one thing. But we did the video, too.
Some people might look at that as an opportunity, but it’s a little different. Houston is a Screwed Up Click city, but at that time Swishahouse was doing our little thing on the Northside. Even on the Northside, people were jamming Screwed up Click. You couldn’t find nobody on the South jamming Swishahouse. Even when I moved to the Southside, it’d be like, “Shit, we love you Paul Wall, but we ain’t jamming that shit over here.”The Big Pokey Bump
There wasn’t a lot of Swishahouse artists doing stuff with Screwed Up Click artists because it was almost like a beef. But I was a Screw fan, and I didn’t have beef with them in any type of way,
I didn’t like them talking about the Northside on the Screw tapes because I was from the Northside, but I still wanted peace with everybody. They could have said, “Fuck you, Paul Wall” and I still would have been like, “Damn, I hate that they said it, but they’re still my favorite rappers.”
There was some Southside and Northside artists doing collaborations like that but not a lot, so it was one of those things that if you did something with Lil Keke, Big Pokey, or Fat Pat before he was killed, then it was automatic. There were people doing it but maybe not on that level. With Big Pokey giving me that cosign, everything changed. My acceptance as an artist in Houston changed.
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