Pimp C

How do you condense a man's life into a handful of neat paragraphs? How can you explain a person's sweeping influence on a culture and sum up their entire legacy in a few hundred words? This is the dilemma I'm faced with as I try to write a fitting eulogy for fallen musician Pimp C, who passed away recently in a Los Angeles hotel room. He wasn't a superstar, but his influence on the music world was undeniable and couldn't possibly be captured in the space of a blog entry.

Chad "Pimp C" Butler was one-half of Port Arthur, TX's seminal rap group UGK. Texas hip hop has reached an all-time high in popularity, and many of the groups currently reaping the benefits are direct descendants from the UGK school of rap. Pimp sang his own melodic hooks and used live instruments to craft funky beats for he and his partner Bun B to rhyme over. UGK's use of slowed down vocal samples, self-sung choruses and bubbling bass, along with their laidback rhymes about "slabs", "boppers" and "pourin up" influenced countless MCs since the duo released their first album, "Banned", in 1988.

Bun B was the better MC of the pair, a rapper's rapper with a rapid-fire flow and intricate lyrics. But Pimp's colorful persona, his proficiency as a producer and a musician, and his gift for writing and singing catchy hooks were what made UGK's sound so distinctive. He always proved a funny and lively interview, and his blunt rhymes had a cynical sense of humor that belied their simplicity.

Pimp C's epitaph deserves to contain the word "innovator". He helped lay the groundwork for a style still being used successfully by artists today. In fact, Texas rap done in the fashion of UGK is more popular than ever, so, if anything, giving his own limited commercial success, it can be argued Pimp C was too ahead of his time. But instead of being bitter, Pimp was clearly pleased that the musical blueprint he'd designed had given birth to so many other careers. Even though he's gone, the tradition he started will carry on.