Pokey released his debut album, “Hardest Pit in the Litter” in 1999, and “Da Game 2000” the following year. The sound reached a fever pitch in the mid-2000s as other fellow popular underground Houston artists like Lil’ Flip, Slim Thug, Paul Wall, Chamillionaire and UGK signed national distribution deals and brought mainstream attention to the sound.

The trendsetting DJ developed the slowed, pitched-down music style known as “chopped and screwed” music that would eventually become synonymous with Houston, and whose mixtapes spread throughout the southeastern United States. Family and officials are awaiting autopsy results to learn the cause of death.īig Pokey, known by a slew of nicknames including Big Poyo and Podina, began to garner local fame in the late ’90s as an original member of the Screwed Up Click, a friend group-turned-rap collective led by DJ Screw. Pokey’s death was confirmed to The Associated Press by his publicist La’Torria Lemon, as well as Tom Gillam III, a justice of the peace in Jefferson County, where Powell was performing. Videos quickly circulated on social media of the rapper, who was featured on Megan Thee Stallion’s 2022 “Southside Royalty Freestyle,” taking a deep breath into his microphone before appearing to pass out and fall onto his back.

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