Layered multis, punch lines, metaphors, word plays; they're all there, doused with energy and ethos and cocksuredness and undeniable brilliance and influence. That scatterbrained oft-kilter flow Weezy likes to throw around that everyone tries to copy? This is the blueprint. T.I.'s bounce? Here's where it started. Jeezy's grit? Right here. Luda, Boosie, Gucci, any other Southern rapper with a horrible name? This is where they were birthed. Bun has never been more possessed.
There was no room for arguing anymore after the first three songs of this album were over: Bun had leapfrogged Pimp to become the then-second best rapper in Southern America.
This may be completely by accident, but the album covers of
Swallow,
Super Tight and
Ridin' Dirty seem to imply this same shift.
Too Hard has Bun squatting down with Pimp standing over him but leaning down in an "I'm the dominant one in this relationship" manner.
Super Tight has both Bun and Pimp at equal heights on the cover. And on
Ridin' Dirty, Bun has taken over the dominant position at the forefront with Pimp in the background. (Sometimes it makes me kind of sad that I know this kind of stuff, but I don't know my sons' Social Security numbers.)
And if this album only housed the complete fruition of Bun as a rapper, it still would've been a classic for sure, probably falling back to the No. 5 or 6 spot. But beyond that, and just as importantly, this is also the album where Pimp first put all of the pieces together musically. The church background, the understanding of the then super-insular customs of a still evolving Southern rap and the heavy R&B sampling;
Ridin' Dirty was the first time Pimp figured out how to work it all together without compromising any of the moving parts.
This was actually the very first thing Bun mentioned when we asked him why this, above all others, was the marquee UGK album.
So you've got not only the emergence of the guy who would go on to become one of the South's best rappers of all time, as well as Houston's most culturally important MC - Scarface is better in a vacuum, but Bun has an exponentially greater understanding of the fact that sometimes being a rapper is about more than just rapping - but one of the times' finest producers creating a near perfect snapshot of the era ("One Day," "Diamonds and Wood," "Touched," "That's Why I Carry," "Hi-Life" and "3 in Tha Mornin'.").
Yeah, that's good for the No. 2 spot on the list. And really, if you want to argue that it should be No. 1, that's understandable. It's still wrong, but understandable.
