Pimp C with his long-time friend Bun B, who worked under the collective alias of UGK. Photograph: Dave Stelfox
Last Wednesday I received a text message from a fellow music journalist and hip-hop enthusiast. "Dave, you hear that Pimp C is dead? Cause unknown as yet. Shocked." "Shocked" was exactly how I felt. Learning that Pimp C's body had been found in his room at the Mondrian Hotel in Los Angeles, where he was working and performing with Bay Area rapper Too $hort, I couldn't help but remember the last time we met.
Only a couple of years ago, we sat outside a studio on the south side of Houston, Texas, in Pimp's showroom-fresh Bentley, a present from J Prince, boss of local label Rap-A-Lot, discussing his recent release from the Terrell Prison Unit in Rosharon, after serving half of an eight-year sentence for community service violations stemming from an earlier aggravated assault charge.
At this point the rapper, then 31, seemed to have everything to live for, breathlessly reeling off plans for solo albums (2006's Pimpalation), numerous collaborations and a return to work with his long-time friend and partner Bun B (Bernard Freeman) under their collective alias of UGK that came to fruition in this year's Billboard No 1 double album Underground Kingz.
Despite scant recognition on British shores, Pimp C, real name Chad Butler, was a pivotal and pioneering presence in not just Texan hip-hop, but the whole Dirty South scene - a disparate collective movement that has come to dominate the US charts, effectively sidelining urban music's previous East and West Coast heartlands over recent years.
The road to prominence hadn't been an easy one, though, as outlined by Bun B in a moving interview featured on noted local writer and promoter Matt Sonzala's blog, Houstonsoreal.
First it was difficult for two high-school buddies from Port Arthur, a small city west of Houston, to be taken seriously by the hip-hop establishment. On tracks including Pocket Full of Stones, Cocaine in the Back of the Ride and Front, Back and Side to Side, their uncompromising lyrics were delivered in a drawling country grammar that bore no relation to the increasingly orthodox performances of rappers from previously recognised hip-hop territories, leading many major players to believe that they were unmarketable to the rest of the world. However, UGK's work set many of the cornerstones of contemporary rap music, painting alternately lurid and laid-back portraits of drug dealing, luxury cars, diamond-encrusted jewellery and easy sex.
While always a more than competent MC, production was where Pimp's real genius lay, his instrumentals blending Californian G-funk swagger with unmistakably Southern influences such as gospel organ phrases, the down-home soul of Muscle Shoals and the pulsating rhythms of musicians such as New Orleans' the Meters.
Over years of hard grind and four full albums, Pimp and Bun became hometown heroes and, slowly but surely, their reputation spread across the States. Then mainstream acceptance came with a guest appearance on Jay Z's 1999 classic Timbaland-produced single Big Pimpin'.
Pimp's incarceration in 2002 put paid to any further steps toward A-list status, Bun B keeping UGK's flame alive with an unstoppable run of guest appearances, invariably featuring the words "Free Pimp C", and a 2005 solo album entitled Trill. Meeting Bun before Pimp's release, it was clear that his friend's absence had affected him deeply. During this time in Houston, I also discovered a curious duality: a warm-hearted, welcoming town with an extraordinarily individual rap culture that was, and still remains, a place of deep melancholy, loss and mourning - a city full of ghosts.
Despite the respected status of artists such as the Geto Boys and UGK, the city's real signature sound is a style of slowed-down, stuttering remixing known as "screwed and chopped" hip-hop. Named after its creator, Robert Earl Davis Jr aka DJ Screw, screwed music channels the effects of codeine cough syrup, the regional intoxicant of choice directly through the DJ's turntables. First stumbled upon by accident when Screw carelessly leaned on the speed control of his Technics 1200, slowing the record he was playing to a crawl, his experiments continued throughout the 1990s, over a series of mixtapes numbering well into the thousands.
Stretching time itself, these grainy recordings transformed street rap into introspective, psychedelic masterpieces that frequently unveiled a hidden tenderness and poignancy behind even the most boastful rhymes. It's perfect music for the car, the porch, for quiet and reflective moments, times of personal sadness.
In fact, it almost seems to have predicted Houston's future. Screw passed away in his home back in November 2000, aged 29. The cause was never conclusively established although, according to a coroner's report, a high level of codeine was found in his bloodstream. These days Screw is looked upon not just as a musical innovator, but an almost spiritual figure ever-present in the city's hip-hop scene.
In an interview conducted in July 2005 while researching a piece on Houston's recent explosion to international recognition, thanks to MCs including Mike Jones, Paul Wall, Chamillionaire and Slim Thug, John Hawkins, alias HAWK, a member of Davis's Screwed Up Click collective of rappers, said of these early days: "We were just making music to scream out to our people. We never expected it to be much more than that, but Screw, like a prophet, predicted that it would be. He used to tell us, 'I'm going to screw up the world. Now it's our duty to let everyone know what he did for us.' "
Screw never did get to see his dream come true, and tragically, just as his own brother, rapper Fat Pat had been in 1998, HAWK was also shot dead in May 2006, aged only 36. As if this litany of disasters wasn't enough, October 14 this year also saw the death of fellow Screwed Up Click member Big Moe, following a heart attack.
Given recent events, it's easy to consider Houston the most unfortunate city in hip-hop, a place of great sorrow and pain. However, the flipside of Texan rap's many bereavements is shown in its strength and its heart, its ability and sense of obligation to celebrate the lives of those who have helped place it on the world's musical map. Fittingly, just two days after Pimp C's death, the news broke that UGK's recent single, International Player's Anthem (I Choose You) featuring OutKast, has been nominated for a Grammy Award. This and the outpouring of tributes from local artists, friends and supporters, seems to prove that, just as DJ Screw's legacy has lived on throughout Texan rap culture, Pimp C's contribution to Southern hip-hop will continue to be honoured.
Pimp C (December 29, 1973 - December 4, 2007) was buried on Thursday in Port Arthur, Texas. Autopsy and toxicology reports have yet to be filed, though the circumstances surrounding his death are not thought to be suspicious. My condolences go out to his family, friends and all who knew him.
