For the unfamiliar, the “screwed-and-chopped” style of remix was pioneered by the late DJ Screw and is when a song/album (usually hip-hop) is slowed down and edited so it sounds like the original version trudging through cold molasses. Moonlight director Barry Jenkins is a fan of these productions, and he included a screwed-and-chopped version of Jidenna’s “Classic Man” in the aforementioned film. Now, in a year that has been full of unexpected news, Jenkins has made a screwed-and-chopped version of the classic Wilco album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (in collaboration with The Chopstars).
The album has been renamed Yankee Purple Foxtrot, and as one would expect, the whole album has been made to sound like a much woozier version of the original. Jenkins wrote on Twitter, “NOBODY asked for this BUT… in a world where Jeff Tweedy and the boyz was from Houston, TX… @candlestickem, @OGRONC and me present YANKEE PURPLE FOXTROT. Some Americana for the timeline given recent events. The #YeehawAgenda is alive and well.”
https://twitter.com/BarryJenkins/status/1325875458773118976
While this wasn’t exactly on anybody’s 2020 bingo card, it’s not entirely unprecedented. In 2017, Jenkins teamed up with Chopstars’ DJ Candlestick on screwed-and-chopped versions of the Grizzly Bear albums Veckatimest and Painted Ruins.
Listen to the screwed-and-chopped version of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot above.
