I relocated to Houston from Detroit a few years ago, but I’ve been a fan of the hip-hop scene almost all my life. Thanks to a friend who had family in Texas and a little help from OG Napster, I spent countless hours in middle and high school listening to UGK, Scarface, The Screwed Up Click, Swisha House, and more. DJ Screw, the godfather of the slowed down sound, will always have a seat on my Mt. Rushmore of DJs (RIP). It’s only right my second hip-hop city map is dedicated to H-Town, Space City, Clutch City, The City of Swang/Drank/Screw/etc.

When figuring out where I wanted to go with this map, I decided early on NOT to make a map similar to my Detroit one. Although I’m a Houston rap fan, I don’t think I’m knowledgeable enough to create a comprehensive list of OG and new school Houston emcees to match what I did for Detroit. Plus it was extremely labor intensive, and I’m working on streamlining my process to publish more maps without sacrificing quality. Instead I decided on mapping a dope song-well, two songs-I think embodies the city well: Slim Thug’s “Welcome to Houston”.

Slim Thug is a dope emcee with a 20+ year career and a legend in Houston and beyond. I chose “Welcome 2 Houston” because both variants showcase a wide range of Houston emcees and share a ton of local geography. The first version, released in 2009 on his second studio album Boss of All Bosses features Chamillionaire, Paul Wall, Mike Jones, UGK, Lil’ Keke, Z-Ro, Trae the Truth, Rob G, Lil’ O, Big Pokey, Mike D, and Yung Redd. The second iteration, released in 2017 on his ninth album Welcome 2 Houston, features Delorean, Doughbeezy, GT Garza, Killa Kyleon, and Propain. The 2009 version shouts out 11 neighborhoods and 13 roads in Houston, mapped in a manner similar to my previous maps. However, for the 2017 version I highlighted something different.

The 2017 “Welcome 2 Houston” music video shows all six emcees rapping in various parts of Houston, so I mapped those locations:
– Slim Thug is at the #TEAMHOUSTON mural at 2102 Commerce Street (note: this building has since been redeveloped and the mural is no longer there).
– GT Garza is at the corner of Avenue B and N Cesar Chavez Boulevard.
– Propain is at Screwed Up Records & Tapes on Houston’s Southside, where you can still buy OG Screwtapes.
– Killa Kyleon is at the basketball courts at Patrick Milton Park.
– Delorean is Downtown, on the roof of the Avenida North Garage parking structure next to the George R. Brown Convention Center.
– Doughbeezy is walking Downtown, starting from the corner of Austin and McKinney Streets.

Most of the data to build this map is from the City of Houston’s Open Data Portal. I used their Super Neighborhoods layer to find most of the neighborhoods (one, Scenic Woods, I had to draw manually), the Major Thoroughfare and Freeway Plan for major roads, and of course the city limits. One neighborhood, Channelview, is technically a Census Designated Place outside of Houston, so I used the open data portal of the Houston-Galveston Area Council, the regional planning entity, to find it. And of course the symbology is inspired by local sports colorways: neighborhoods in Rockets red & white, roads in OG Oilers blue, and music video locations in Astros orange and navy. The city limits are a shade of blue from the city government’s official style guide, which kind of looks purple-ish when you adjust the opacity. If you know you know.

This map was super fun to make. Houston continues to show me mad love. The people are great, the food is amazing, and although I’m publishing it during a record-breaking heat wave the weather ain’t that bad either.