CD Reviews

UGK

Underground Kingz | Jive

By MATTHEW GASTEIER | September 18, 2007

Legends in the Houston rap game, the duo of Bun B and Pimp C were unable to capitalize on their city’s national shine circa 2005 because of C’s stint in a correctional facility. This double-disc offering illustrates their built-up impatience to record: 27 songs (not including bonus remixes of the souled-out OutKast collab “Int’l Players Anthem), and no want of hits. The better first disc has “Chrome Plated Woman,” a slyly flipped car-as-woman tribute, and the standout single “The Game Belongs to Me” (“I got Bobby by the pound/Whitney by the key/DJ Screw by the gallon/Bitch the game belongs to me”), and on the second, “Candy,” produced by Houston mainstay Scarface, is classic Texas funk, all shivery and deep-fried. What with the inevitable filler, like the “Two Type of Bitches” routine, Underground Kingz is not quite an instant classic, but it would be hard to deny that UGK have reclaimed their throne.

Related: Prodigy, Hip-hoptronic, T.I., More

Prodigy
By the time this goes to press, Prodigy will be roughly 10 books and 2000 push-ups deep into the three-and-change prison term he picked up last year for illegal gun possession.
Hip-hoptronic
Despite her candied look and popstastic nameplate, Oxy Cottontail remains an integral part of the club-rap scene. Oxy Cottontail, "Roxxy's Cotton Tales" mixtape (mpeg)
T.I.
Atlanta rapper T.I. pushed 500,000 King units the first week, but I don’t think his pro forma rags-or-riches movie debut ATL or America’s boner for all things Southern deserve the credit.
ATL
Rap-video director Chris Robinson revisits Boyz N the Hood , transplanting the parable of African-American youths getting out from LA to hardscrabble Atlanta.
Ho down
Hip-hop has always had a bad rap ( duh-hyuk! ) for misogyny, but when I think back on the long history of articles criticizing the lyrical treatment of women, I have to chuckle.
Esoteric vs. Japan
Anyone who considers Kanye West a genius for sampling generic Billboard toppers should be enamored of Esoteric’s second solo disc in two years.
Review: Lisa ''Left Eye'' Lopes, Eye Legacy
The posthumous hip-hop release has become such a music-biz commonplace.
Starting from Scratch
If the hip-hop generation ever calls for martial law, the revolution will be sponsored by Scion. The rectangularly adventurous car company is our closest corporate ally, bankrolling a large segment of the low-slung-pants community, and providing the rest of us with sweet events that rarely dent the pocket.
Hip-hop history
“The thing that’s most gratifying to me is that the artists themselves like it and respect it, ’cause I’m trying to tell their story,” says Brian Coleman.
Can't be bought
It’s already given critics who don’t usually have much to say about hip-hop license to wax poetic over, you know, the skillz and shit of Brooklyn rapper Tim Fite.
Soul Touch army
Today’s funk and soul DJ is either an imitator or an innovator. Cosmo Baker, ".45 Caliber Funk Volume 1" (mp3)
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ARTICLES BY MATTHEW GASTEIER

UGK | September 18, 2007
Underground Kingz is not quite an instant classic, but it would be hard to deny that UGK have reclaimed their throne.

TALIB KWELI | August 20, 2007
Ear Drum doesn’t reach the highs of that far more ambitious and sprawling album, but it’s a welcome return to form.

SKILL RIDE | July 17, 2007
All it took was a Godzilla sample and a simple, forceful “Simon says get the fuck up” for Pharoahe Monch to leave his mark on hip-hop history.

THE HATE-LOVE-HATE CYCLE | June 18, 2007
The field is already packed with newcomers and veterans alike, all aiming to knock down my standards of good taste and respectability . . .