Houston’s Hip-Hop Scene Picks Up the Pieces After Yet Another Death
HOUSTON — On Friday night here at Warehouse Live, 48 hours and 1,500 miles from the Grammy Awards, more than a thousand fans gathered for a different sort of musical celebration.
Backstage, Bun B hugs Mama Wes, Pimp C’s mother.
The concert was advertised as a solo show by Bun B, the Port Arthur, Tex., rapper who has been a defining figure in Houston hip-hop for more than 15 years. But the concert also functioned as a tribute to Pimp C, Bun B’s partner in the pioneering duo UGK, who was found dead in his West Hollywood, Calif., hotel room on Dec. 4. On Dec. 6 it was announced that, for the first time, the duo had been nominated for a Grammy. “Int’l Players Anthem (I Choose You),” by UGK featuring OutKast, was up for best rap performance by a duo or group.
This was Bun B’s first show since then, and it was a tough, courageous one. In the crowd there were dozens of different varieties of “R.I.P. Pimp C” T-shirts, some homemade. And onstage Bun B was joined by a coterie of rappers and friends, including Pimp C’s mother, widely known as Mama Wes. She was easy to spot in a sporty red military shirt with “Mama” emblazoned on one pocket. And from time to time, if you looked closely, you could see her lips moving in time to the beat.
As he accepted one of many ovations, Bun B said he felt so good, “it don’t make no sense.” Later he delivered a different message: “I miss him.” Either way he was confirming fans’ hopes and fears. Yes, Bun B is still going strong. And yes, Pimp C, an illustrious rapper and producer and provocateur, is still gone.
Earlier last week the Los Angeles County coroner announced the cause of death: promethazine and codeine, key ingredients in prescription cough syrup, which may have combined with his sleep apnea to stop his breathing. This was especially grim news because it wasn’t entirely unexpected. Prescription cough syrup — sometimes diluted, and often called “drank” or “lean” or “purp” — is the recreational drug most closely associated with Houston’s fertile hip-hop scene.
Syrup often seems inextricable from the slow and sometimes psychedelic sound of Houston hip-hop. (This is a city where record stores sell cough-syrup-flavored air freshener.) DJ Screw became a local hero — and an inspiration to producers around the country — with his syrup-friendly slow-motion remixes; he died of an overdose in 2000. The Houston rapper Big Moe, whose output included a great 2000 album called, “City of Syrup,” died after a heart attack last October. On the back cover of a new Houston mixtape, “Keep On Stackin 3,” the rapper J-Dawg delivers a message: “R.I.P. Big Moe,” inscribed on a plastic-foam cup, the vessel of choice for syrup sippers.
It would be disingenuous — maybe even unfair — to pretend that Pimp C had no connection to syrup. (After all, his own rhymes were thrillingly unexpurgated.) One of UGK’s biggest hits was “Sippin’ on Some Syrup,” a brilliant and hallucinatory collaboration with Three 6 Mafia and Project Pat. One of his most recent solo singles was “Pourin’ Up,” from 2006. In a track from more than a decade ago, Pimp C claimed he was forsaking syrup in favor of Dom Pérignon. But last year, on UGK’s triumphant double-album, “Underground Kingz” (Jive/Zomba), Pimp C still mentioned “sippin’ drank.”
Since the early 1990s UGK has been a force in Houston and throughout the South, helping lay the groundwork for this decade’s Southern hip-hop explosion. After a string of excellent underground CDs, the duo had a brush with pop success in 1999, when both members appeared on Jay-Z’s hit single “Big Pimpin’.” (That song was nominated for a Grammy and lost; this year was the first time UGK was nominated as the principal performer.) After “Big Pimpin’,” UGK was on the verge of a commercial breakthrough that never came. And by 2002 Pimp C was in jail, serving a sentence stemming from an aggravated assault charge.
While Pimp C was locked up, Bun B became his most vocal advocate, and also a reluctant solo star; he single-handedly turned “Free Pimp C” into a hip-hop catchphrase. Backstage before the concert Bun B said, “We didn’t understand what ‘Free Pimp C’ really meant.” Pimp C was released on Dec. 30, 2005, and he had less than two years to enjoy his new life.
Now Bun B is on his own again, reprising the solo career he began while Pimp C was in prison; in a sense that ordeal was a rehearsal for this one. “I’m not sure if I would have been able to come back so soon, if it hadn’t been for that,” he said. His second solo album, “II Trill” (Rap-A-Lot/Asylum), is due out on April 1. And he is scheduled to perform at this year’s South by Southwest festival in Austin, Tex.; that performance is to be the start of a national tour.
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As Friday’s concert demonstrated, Bun B isn’t just Pimp C’s bereaved musical partner. He’s a scarily precise rapper, known for his hard enunciation, his fluctuating line lengths and his thoughtful lyrics. He emerged onstage delivering “Bun,” a brash exposition on the ethics and aesthetics of street life. As he made his way through his — and UGK’s — greatest hits, he was joined by a handful of Houston rappers: Slim Thug for “3 Kings,” Mike Jones for “My 64,” Z-Ro for “Get Throwed.”
Near the end of the set Bun B led audience members in rap-along renditions of some of Pimp C’s rhymes. (It was odd — and quite moving — to hear Bun B’s rat-a-tat voice trying to fill the spaces left by Pimp C’s long, braying vowels.) During a verse from “Hi-Life” streetwise swagger gave way to piety: “What you gon’ do when the devil poke you with his fork?” In deference to Pimp C that last word was pronounced, “folk.”
When it finally came time for “One Day,” one of the duo’s best-loved tracks, the club got a little bit quieter. Bun B asked, “H-Town, y’all got my back?” And soon everyone was reciting one of Pimp C’s most memorable verses, a clear-eyed appraisal of crime and jail and death. It ends with a plea: “If you got kids, show ’em you love ’em, ’cause God just might call ’em home/’Cause one day they here, and baby, the next day they gone.” Bun B had sunk to the floor. “This is UGK for life,” he said. “Don’t leave me now. I need you bad.”
It’s a cardinal rule of tribute concerts and memorial services and newspaper articles about great musicians who die too young: You’re supposed to emphasize the good, saying something comforting about a spirit living on, forever unforgotten. And it’s true: Pimp C’s brash voice will echo for a long time, in music old and new; Bun B says a new album of unreleased UGK music is on the way.
But on Friday night it was hard not to be overwhelmed by what’s gone. Houston’s sad roll call keeps getting longer: not just Pimp C and Big Moe and DJ Screw, but also Fat Pat, H.A.W.K., Big Steve, Big Mello and others. A few years ago Houston hip-hop was exploding; now the boom has come and gone, leaving the survivors to plot their next moves. Backstage Bun B said, “We had a good run, now it’s time to knuckle down.” No doubt he’s right. But it won’t be the same.
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