Music

When Mike Jones, Slim Thug and Paul Wall first cut “Still Tippin,’” they weren’t seeking superstardom, just a bonafide street hit. But with the classic track, the three Houston MCs — and the people behind them — propelled Houston into a hip-hop hub. 

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“Still Tippin’” received its major release on November 12, 2004 — though it was a hit in the streets and clubs of Houston over a year prior. But Jones had spent years just trying to make it as an artist. At his side was his mother and grandmother, who were his biggest supporters in his creative journey — and inspired the famous “Who? Mike Jones!” adlib.

“I was trying to go to the club and get my music played,” Jones tells Billboard. “People were making fun of me, like, ‘Are you Biggie?’ I’m like ‘I’m Mike Jones.’ and they’d be like, ‘Who?’ And my grandma and mom said, ‘Throw it back in their face’”

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Jones was discovered by Swishahouse founder and president Michael Watts in the late ‘90s, after artist manager — then A&R man — T Farris suggested Watts get him to rap on Swishahouse mixtapes. At the time, Watts says that Jones was performing freestyles and mixes at strip clubs for the women to dance to. “I went there to go check him out,” Watts recalls, “and I said, ‘Hey, why don’t you come to the studio and lay down a few freestyles?’”

Jones would later cut some tracks for the Swishahouse crew before signing in the early 2000s, but his Houston breakthrough would come in the form of “Still Tippin’” — in its original 2003 iteration. 

The song first appeared on Swishahouse’s The Day Hell Broke Loose 2 mixtape, not necessarily as a Jones single, but a compilation track comprised of the Swishahouse roster. “The song was so strong, that we ended up partnering with Asylum. So we used this song that was hot on the streets as a single for Mike Jones,” says Watts.

The original version of “Still Tippin’” had a verse by Chamillionaire instead of Wall, and rides a different instrumental. Watts remembers that the artists didn’t want to rap over the beat we know and love today — composed of a downtempo percussive loop and a hypnotic sample of Giachiono Rossini’s “Willam Tell Overture” by the South German Philharmonic Orchestra and Alfred Scholz. “No one originally wanted to rap on that song,” says Watts. “So what I did was, I reproduced it, I put the hook on it, put Slim, Mike, and Paul’s verse on it, and that’s how that song came about.”

Jones remembers it differently, crediting the main version’s producer for crafting the simple yet memorable loop we know today. “Shoutout Salih Williams. That was all him,” Jones says. “It was his idea. Like ‘let me create it off of this vibe,’ and we just did what we did.”

One of the biggest factors in the song’s rise was its music video. Before the eras of YouTube, Vevo, and TikTok, the “Still Tippin’” visual became a staple late-night video on the after-hours program BET Uncut through word of mouth.

The video is fairly simple, featuring the rappers driving through the streets of Houston in Escalades and cars decked out with rims and dubs. Notable moments include a callback to Jones’ days in the strip club and Slim receiving road head (oral sex while driving) — both of which were cut from the daytime version. But scandalous moments aside, Jones believes that the music and the car culture depicted in the video is what made it a classic.

“This was a good song that both sides of the city of Houston could come together and ride with,” Jones says. “We got the south side with the candy red cars [and] we got the north side with the candy blue cars.”

Helming the video was John “Dr. Teeth” Tucker, a Cincinnati native who became an advocate for southern hip-hop after attending Texas Southern University in Houston. After college, Teeth worked as a producer on BET’s Rap City — and would often rave about southern hip-hop artists to his colleagues. 

“These guys were going platinum without a deal, because they were making this music between Louisiana and Oklahoma and Texas — and going on tour,” Teeth recalls. “And I was telling the people back about UGK and Southside Players and DJ Screw and Swishaouse. I was telling them about these guys back in Texas — and up north, man, New Yorkers feel like hip hop starts with them and it ends with them. They weren’t trying to hear nothing about the South.”

As Teeth became more invested in southern hip-hop, he continued to document and highlight these artists — and later, made UGK’s Bun B a southern correspondent on Rap City. He also created the “The Booth” portion of Rap City: Tha Bassment, where artists brushed off their freestyle skills and showcased a fiar share of southern acts.

Teeth eventually left BET and moved back to Houston to pursue a career as a music video director. Upon his return, he remembers meeting a man named Wally, who was doing distribution for Swishahouse. Wally urged Teeth to meet with Swishahouse’s CEO G-Dash to discuss shooting videos for Swishahouse to distribute on DVDs. When meeting G-Dash, Teeth said he would shoot a video for Mike Jones for $30,000. However, according to Teeth, “He didn’t want to put down the money.”

G-Dash, Teeth, and Wally later met up, with Wally mediating. Teeth eventually agreed to do the video, capturing various aspects of Houston street culture. In portions of the video, Watts is seen spinning “Still Tippin’” on turntables, as a woman dances to the track. According to Teeth, this woman was recruited from a local strip club.

“I picked her because she was generating all the attention in the strip club,” says Teeth. “People were drawn to her and she had an energy to her. They were like a moth to the flame.” For Teeth, everything about the video was intentional — not for mainstream success, but for Houston rap fans. “I said, ‘Let’s make it for your fans, because DVDs were heavy and we can make a DVD around this and sell it if we can never get it to BET’.”

Jones also only anticipated this being a Houston hit, which is why he felt comfortable wearing a shirt with his personal phone number — (281) 330-8004 — on it. This also came as a suggestion from his grandmother, who died in 2003, before the video’s official release.

“I didn’t want to give out my phone number at first,” Jones says. “My grandma was like, ‘Do something that ain’t nobody else doing. Be personal to the fans. Give out your phone number.’ And I was like ‘Man, I’m not finna give out my phone number.’ I eventually gave out my phone number. Thank God for her giving me that direction.’” Today, the phone number has since been reactivated as a fan hotline.

To the surprise of Teeth and the Swishahouse crew, the song became a slow-burning hit — so much so that Teeth had to cut a second version for rotation on MTV channels, as well as BET’s daytime countdown 106 & Park. Thankfully, Teeth had plenty of footage to comply with the networks’ requests. “I hate the 106 & Park version,” Teeth jokes. “Asylum didn’t give us the money to go back and reshoot what we shot before, and we shot on an older film camera.”

Since its release, “Still Tippin’” has peaked at No. 60 on the Billboard Hot 100 and has been certified platinum. The video also earned a nomination in the MTV2 Category at the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards.

“That song is so personal to me, because when you look at that video, it’s 100% a vision that God gave to me. To put the city that I live in now on the map and give respect to the pioneers of of Houston sound,” says Teeth. “And to me what makes it so great is that it was nominated for a viewers choice award. It’s more than just what he did on the charts. It’s what the people connected to and I’m really proud of that.”

To this day, “Still Tippin’” continues to make an impact in hip-hop. Artists like ASAP Rocky, Lil Uzi Vert, and Normani have gone on to sample the track in their own works. The song is also a staple at any Texas function.

“If it didn’t blow up nowhere else, we knew it was going to blow up in Texas,” says Jones. “Everybody’s big on rides and cars. We still tippin’, and people that are from where we’re from understand the lingo.”