Upon Realizing Paul Wall Is A Monster Houston Astro's Backer, It's No Wonder The Chicago White Sox Didn't Stand A Chance
The Athletic - Back in 2005, Wall was on top of the world. His second studio album, The Peoples Champ, debuted in September at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200. His now legendary feature on Kanye West’s hit song “Drive Slow,” appeared on both Wall’s album and West’s “Late Registration,” which dropped in late August.
And on Oct. 23, a day after the White Sox won Game 1 of the World Series, Wall and his wife Crystal were married. And once the Astros advanced to the World Series, Wall threw a stop sign on their honeymoon plans.
“My wife was pissed, she was like, ‘We could be in Jamaica right now!’” he said. “I’m like, no, you can’t watch the game in Jamaica. It might not be on their TV.”
I'm not gonna post a ton of the article because The Athletic is a paywall site, and because its author, Jon Greenberg, is the fuckin man.
That said, I had this article bookmarked since last week. I just got around to reading it and God did I wish I did sooner. Because no shit the Astros steamrolled the White Sox- Paul Wall has been anxiously waiting for revenge for 16 years.
"Who the fuck is Paul Wall?" - no nothing's with shit taste in music
Paul Wall aka Clean Plate, aka The People's Champ, is a Houston-born and bred rapper. He helped put H-town on the map musically (along with Scarface, DJ Screw, Slim Thug, Mike Jones, and Lil Flip). He also made every white kid growing up in the early 2000's fantasize about sporting a grill.
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Turns out he's a rabid baseball fan, and huge Astros supporter.
So much so that he told his wife no dice on their honeymoon because it conflicted with the World Series.
He was obviously heartbroken by Ozzie's White Sox dismantling his Astros in short order (a 4 game sweep) and didn't think he'd see another opportunity again until they made it back in 2017.
Being the great big J that he is, Jon asked Paul if the title they (cheated) won was tainted and Paul went on a 15-minute rant about how it wasn't.
“My initial reaction was kind of the same as it is now,” he said. “It didn’t bother me. I didn’t feel bad. I didn’t feel like they cheated. Or they cheated me. Because I looked at the totality from the jump.”
As Wall recounted, the Astros weren’t the only team that was stealing signs through technology in those times. But they became the face of the scandal.
“I look at it as the Astros, being a team that’s never won before, just being there the first time they’re gonna have a higher level of scrutiny,” he said.
“Me personally, this is what I thought, if banging on a trash can is the difference in my team winning and your team losing, then I feel like your team isn’t that good,” he said. “If that’s all it takes to beat you, somebody to bang on the trash can, then you’re not as good as you think you are. … Now I’m gonna be honest, if my team lost, and the other team did it, I’d be pissed. My team won it all and all I can say is it’s about damn time we won.”
Bold stance to take here.
But how the hell were the White Sox supposed to compete with that?
The answer is you can't.
Paul Wall has more jewelry in his mouth than the White Sox have around their necks. And that's saying a lot.
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The interview also included a nice call back to Wall's Chicago ties via one of Kanye's greatest songs ever, which Paul was featured on, "Drive Slow".
Jon go the whole origin story of how the song came to be, from West and Wall bumping into each other at a stuffy industry event, having some drinks and starting a freestyle volley, which impressed Kanye, to Wall being tapped by Plain Pat to demo a verse for a potential song, to finding out his verse, and the song, made the album from a DJ Drama text.
Awesome interview if you're a fan of golden era rap and baseball.