Words: Jiro Kohl Photo: Kevin Willoughby
Bizarre TV game shows, space-saving genetically engineered fruit and robotic toilets might give the impression that hilarious oddities are all Japan has to offer, but this migrant DJ is looking to make her homeland into the Land of the Rising Trill. DJ Princess Cut hails from Wakayama, Japan, the southernmost part of the main island, and since trading in her Pocari Sweat for a styrofoam cup full of lean 10 years ago, she’s been down South hustling her screwed up sound and putting her all-female posse UGQ on the map. For those that are quick to doubt, her mixtape grind is the real thing—both Bout to Blow and UGQ have been co-signed by Southern greats UGK, Tum Tum and the late Big Hawk. Fresh off a major victory at the 2007 Southern Entertainment Awards where she was recognized as the best female DJ, Princess Cut took time between phone calls from Pimp C to speak to Mass Appeal about coming to America and the art of the screw.
What made you want to move from Wakayama to Dallas?
I wanted to go to somewhere where I could learn English without any Japanese people. I’ve met different people that have gone to different states, like New York or California, and there are so many Japanese out there, Japanese people just get together. I wanted to go to somewhere that’s totally different from Japan.
And when did you get into screw music?
About five years ago. Like a year after I moved to Dallas I started DJing. My homeboy Big Tex out of nowhere started listening to more UGK and Houston stuff, more rap music other than the conscious music. And he came to the house to get me, and he was listening to [DJ Screw], and I was like, “Wow, what is this?” I was already interested in turntablism, so I was like, What can I do if I combined scratching and all those different techniques, and screw music? I just started experimenting because there was not that much examples out there. There was DJ Screw and Michael Watts, and a couple more and that was it, so I [could] actually experiment and come up with new ideas to screw music.
Tell me about your mixtapes and the UGQ movement as a whole.
I’m the underground queen. I started out networking with female rappers in every state and I pretty much put it together. That was the UGQ mixtape series, and now Pimp C is talking about actually setting up a label, UGQ Records. Before, it was just me doing the mixtapes, [UGQ] Volume One was a little bit more underground. Volume Two had Rasheeda, Gangsta Boo [and] Khia hosting it. We’ve got different kind of girls, not just rappers. It’s a female movement, independent females getting together and making it happen.
When did you feel like you had made it in the screw music scene?
Right before [Hawk] died, actually. He had a song called “H-Town Stomp.” He sent me the song, he was like, “Why don’t you screw and chop it?” And that was my first time to have Screwed Up Click, DJ Screw’s people, asking me to chop and screw. That to me was like a major day in my life as a screw DJ. That’s getting closer to the place I want to be. That started my career. I’m not DJ Screw, but as far as [being] a screw DJ, that to me was a good beginning. He died [just] like that, but I’m never going to forget him. To me, as an artist, it was just like, Wow, thank you.
