Review Summary: The perfect yet unexpected goodbye to a pimp everyone actually loved.
UGK entered the scene knowing exactly what “hot boys” and “hot girls” liked in Texas and tried to make songs as NC-17, provocative, and street as possible. While the lyrics were childish and often too hardcore for most record labels, that’s what made them cool in high school. They eventually got a deal with Jive and in 1994, Super Tight came out. That’s when Pimp C went from fly southern youngster with cool songs to beatmaster talent along the likes of DJ Screw, DJ Paul, Juicy J and Organized Noize. Also, Bun’s rapping ability greatly improved while he was already pretty nice. Regardless, Pimp still had his own style separating himself from his new peers: he wasn’t making hip hop music. Like I began with in my Super Tight review, he's makin’ country rap tunes down here. They went on to surpass Super Tight with Ridin’ Dirty in sales and acclaim, but Pimp C’s arrest and lock up for 5 years during the financial potential high point of his career (just after doing the hit single Big Pimpin' with Jay-Z) appeared like a mortal blow for any rap duo.
So was that the end of UGK? The Port Arthur Kings who managed to be one of the whole WORLD’s best hip hop duos? Hell no. Because Pimp and Bun knew a little thing or two about how to write songs that can blend with the times and still seem fresh. It’s now 2007, 13 years after their first classic, and UGK might have released their most foreboding, mature and fly album yet. If you didn’t know, Pimp died later that year due to drug overdose, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t spend a lot of time coordinating with Bun on how to write about something more than just cars, drugs and jewels. Now granted, there’s plenty of that in songs like “The Game Belongs to me”, but the two rappers venture further into deeper and more substantive topics, like rappers coming together and unionizing instead of beefing. Features include the popular Outkast despite being the former hailed “The Underground Kingz”, and also featuring West Coast OG talent (Too $hort) and 2 of the undisputed kings of Golden-era NY (Kool G Rap and Kane on the same track…). Also his lyrics suggest unionization in among younger Texas rappers. “Cocaine” is an examination of the exploitative drug delivered intelligently and clearly. They start from the very beginning and rap about how it came to be used to keep poor people down all over the world but definitely in their home town of Port Arthur, Texas.
Another way this album is interesting is that is that Pimp and Bun managed to alter their personas over the years without us noticing it (or perhaps not as blatantly as a duo like OutKast).They went from rapping about cocaine in the back of the trunk, skeeting it in your girl's mouth to shooting suckas in in the head just in case he has a vest on. Now there certainly is plenty of that trill talk in this album, but they went from being dope boyz to “family men in real life, OG’s in music, speaking truth to power.” Probably inspired by Pimp's time in a Texas Jail, they wrote “How long can it last?,” asking the difficult question of whether people who sell drugs to make a living can go to heaven when it seems there are no alternatives to slinging drugs and everybody has people to feed. Pimp C leaves his first verse open to competing interpretations which is the best part. But now that the Pimp is free he just wants to make money, keep rap music alive, and move to Hawaii and live like a tropical king with some street Hawaiian beauties. Or at least that’s what he would have wanted.
You probably noticed how I didn’t talk much about Bun’s rapping and the beats. That’s because by now, if you know who UGK are, you know that neither need to be addressed. EVERY beat hits the brain and heart, striking just right when it needs to and neither Bun nor the features will fail to impress. So if you’re a fan of UGK but new to this, kick back, relax, smoke something, listen, then chop off your pinky with a box cutter for not hearing this sooner. If you’re curious about one of the most beloved rap groups in the south, please, bear through the length of this double album because very little to no time is wasted and it’s a good intro to them. You might end up loving it, and that’s that sh*t is trill for real.
