Mike Jones

Mike Jones (born January 6, 1981 in Houston, Texas) is a southern rap artist from the northside of Houston. As part of Swishahouse records, he has grown in fame thanks to his unique usage of his own name throughout his songs. Many of his s

Mike Jones (born January 6, 1981 in Houston, Texas) is a southern rap artist from the northside of Houston. As part of Swishahouse records, he has grown in fame thanks to his unique usage of his own name throughout his songs. Many of his songs contain the phrases "Who is Mike Jones?" or "Mike Jones!" spread throughout, resulting in a firm implantation of his name in listeners' memories. His major promotional gimmick is to sell and hand out shirts with his cell phone number on them (athletic department-style shirts reading "Property of Mike Jones"), as well as shouting out the number throughout his mixtapes and albums, encouraging fans to call him on his Motorola phone.

Jones is well known for recording in the "chopped & screwed" style popularized by DJ Screw, also of Houston. The slowed-down audio aesthetic supposedly mimics the effect of "sippin' sizzurp," that is, drinking prescription cough syrup containing codeine (often, though not always, mixed with alcohol); most adherents of the style claim that it has outgrown its drug-related roots. His trademark technique is to take a line from one of his songs and use it as a chorus in another, or sometimes even in the same song, screwing & chopping and repeating it (for example, the chorus in "Back Then" is a screwed line from "Still Tippin'"). Repeating a line multiple times (a line is repeated eight times in a row on the track "Back Then") in succession is said to violate an unspoken and widely accepted rap rule of repetition. He backs up his style by explaining that the repetition emphasizes key points he wants to get across to listeners and declares further that he will continue to rap in this fashion.