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.

Topics: CD Reviews , Dirty South , Entertainment , Hip-Hop and Rap , More

Comments

UGK

This is a pretty ridiculous review. UGK already had national "shine" as two thirds of the rappers on Jay-Z's smash hit "Big Pimpin," which you can still hear piped into Marriott bars. Also, Bun B put out a solo album in 2005 -- it wasn't as good as UGK and didn't have any obvious radio hits along the lines of Chamillionaire or Paul Wall. Not really Bun B's fault, there. My favorite thing about rap reviews in publications like the Phoenix (home of disgraced pseudojournalists like Nick Sylvester) is the way every rap review has to talk about how the artist did time. Classy.

By what? on 09/21/2007 at 6:07:10

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