Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, albeit sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to [email protected].
Today marks the two-year anniversary of Pimp C's death.
Quick aside: We first mentioned this in a recent Artist of the Week interview, but doesn't it feel like "anniversary" is the wrong word to use here? Isn't there something a little more appropriate? Anniversaries are for happy moments. Remembering that somebody died about 50 years too early doesn't seem like it should qualify. Unless we're talking about Jon Gosselin. But whatever. Today, the first annual Pimp C Hip-Hop and Health and Wellness Fair, founded by his widow Chinara Butler, will be held out in Port Arthur in his remembrance. More details here.Pimp is a legend. His much maligned (and wildly underrated) Pimpalation album landed at the No. 24 spot on Rocks Off's (ongoing) countdown of the 25 best Houston Rap Albums of All Time. There are only seven spots left and UGK still hasn't been sighted, so you know for sure you're going to see him at least one more time.
Non-quick aside: It was mentioned to us after the write-up of Pimpalation ran that the circumstances from which the album was birthed might not be common knowledge. So, real quick: Pimpalation was one of those patented Rap-A-Lot "We're Going To Release This Album And There's Not Much You Can Do About It" moves. Pimp was apparently super-pissed that it was being released because - and this next part is solely speculation on our next part, but that's pretty much as good as the truth - several of the songs were not meant specifically for any album, let alone that one. Pimp was always a very conceptual artist, and his albums played like movies. Placing his songs together without a grander picture in mind was no different than knowingly arranging the chapters of a book out of order and just hoping they made sense. (Very similar to the situation with Rap-A-Lot and Devin the Dude's Hi-Life that we were all supposed to ignore.) Which made its overall high quality all the more that impressive. It was like Michael Jordan's famous flu game. In a vacuum, that probably wasn't the best game he ever played, but the situations magnified the end result tenfold. Same thing with Pimpalation. But whatever. We spent a good portion of Thursday evening examining Pimp C's UGK and solo discography with the intention of putting together some really clever list of five songs with verses from Pimp C that foreshadowed his death, then we realized that wasn't doing anything but pissing us off. Here are five songs with Pimp C verses that will simply make you smile. "Something Good," UGK Off Too Hard To Swallow, UGK's debut album. It was like as soon as he got four words into his verse you knew UGK was going to be amazing. "Int'l Players Anthem," UGK feat Andre 3000 This remains to be one our four favorite UGK songs. If a guy shows up at a video set wearing a white fur coat and matching white fur hat, you can fully expect him to rip shit up. On a separate note, yesterday we saw a guy wearing a pair of leather pants, a button-up leather shirt, a leather tie and a pair of leather shoe. It was amazing. He looked like an oil slick walking around. "Everybody Wanna Ball," UGK UGK 4 Life was the best rap album made this year. Not the best rap album made in Houston this year. The best rap album made in the world. Think about that for a bit. "Ain't That A Bitch," UGK feat. Devin the Dude The irony of the situation where Pimp and Devin, two artists Rap-A-Lot would eventually dick over at least once, both being on a song titled "Ain't That A Bitch" that predates said dicking by more than a few years is proof positive that all parts of the cosmos are connected. "One Day," UGK Possibly the greatest UGK song of all time. That's really all that needs to be said. Thanks for your support. Have an okay weekend.
