Chamillionaire: “Maybe Texas Is Dead”

Houston is in a slump to say the least. Widely regarded as hip-hop's hottest city three years ago, H-Town hasn't been hitting as of late. Chamillionaire and Paul Wall, who respectively earned platinum and gold plaques in 2005, both released commercially underwhelming sophomore CDs, while Mike Jones, who kicked started the Houston craze with his single "Still Tippin," has yet to release his second set. Slim Thug has also failed to follow-up on his promising debut. With the city's stock continually plummeting, its stars plan to destroy and rebuild.

"Everywhere I go people are like, "what happened to Houston" and that’s a problem for me," Chamillionaire told XXLMag.com. "I could be one of these people that only cared about myself and be like, 'I’m just gon get it. Forget everybody else in Houston,' but I’m not like that."

"I feel like it makes me look weak if everywhere I’m going, they’re saying everybody in Texas just fell off," he continued. "The only person holding us down is Bun B. When you get kicked and you’re down on the ground, how do you dust yourself up? And I feel like Texas is at that moment right now. I know people gon get mad at me, but maybe they’re right, maybe Texas is dead, cause we’re always everywhere saying we’re holding it down, but everywhere I go, they telling us we’re not. I wanna help everybody else and help motivate and tell them look, man we need to get off our you know whats, get out there and get it, cause I feel like we’re not grinding the way we used to."

Slim agrees with Cham, suggesting H-town needs a fresh crop of Houston MCs to breath new life into the city.

"I think we definitely need new rappers in Houston," Slim hinted. "I’m doing what I can as far as my end of the bargain. I’m trying to keep the movement going with mine, but we definitely need other labels and other artists to step up, man." --Marvin Brandon