Interview with Bun B
By Matt Sonzala
Continued from Murder Dog vol 16 #1
As raw as y’all were back then, how did you end up breaking into the
radio?
What happened in Houston was, we entered this contest called “Houston
Home Jams”, DJ Reggie Reg and Greg Street. Reggie Reg used to come to
the record store at the King’s Flea Market
where we used to work, that’s
the guy that put UGK out first. Reg was one of the first people to hear
any of the first studio recorded stuff that we did as UGK. And he was
like “Yo, you need to enter that ‘Tell Me Something Good’ in the Home
Jams.” And this was recorded for an album to come out and Home Jams was
for the up and coming artists. He was like, “You ain’t got no album out,
so you qualify.” We talked about it and we joined Home Jams on the last
night of a two week thing and won. The winner was supposed to be pressed
up by BPM Studios, you was supposed to get your single pressed up. When
they found out that we were already signed to a record label, they disqualified
us. But people called so much that they eventually had to add it. For
probably a month we had a hot record on the radio in rotation with no
product to sell. It was a big issue because it was basically against
policy to promote a record that wasn’t available for retail, but the
demand was so high they had to play it. They were risking losing listeners
because at the time they weren’t the only game.
There were three stations in Houston at that time, at least three. Majic
102, The Box and 1590 Raps.
The record came out on February 21st, 1992. Between then and May 1st
when we signed to Jive we had sold upwards of 50,000 independent albums
basically without really knowing what we were doing. The only reason
we halfway knew what we were doing was because Russell at Big Tyme Recordz
who put out our record had a record store, so he understood the concept
of warehouses, and all of this. We were one of the first people to be
independently distributed by Southwest Wholesale. We weren’t the first,
but we were one of the first Rap groups to be distributed by them independently.
But like us, Street Military with Beat Box back in the day, ESG with
Perrion and people like that, we were some of the key people that helped
Southwest Wholesale grow into a major recording industry in the mid to
late 90’s.
Those were some very different times for Houston.
Absolutely. We were kind of taking our cue from what the Oakland music
community was doing. Oakland was basically making music for Oakland,
marketing and distributing it straight to Oakland people, and Oakland
people were supporting it. Instead of just trying to make Rap like we
were from New York, why don’t we just make Texas music for Texas motherfuckers,
just like the Geto Boys was doing and maybe one of these motherfuckers
would pop just like “Mand Playin’ Tricks”.
And it did.
It actually did.
You were one of the first groups out of Houston to sign to a major deal
like that.
Yeah, back then it was us, Johnny Quest had his deal with Tommy Boy,
Street Military were getting ready to get with Wild Pitch, you had the
College Boys, they really went toward more narrative shit. People think
that the boom a few years ago was the beginning for Houston but no, we
had major label situations before that. The tide of Houston just really
kind of changed I think.
Houston had a few different waves. When Southwest Wholesale really started
to grow, that really set a whole new lane for Houston. That was right
around the time when y’all did “Big Pimpin’”. That was 1999, right?
We recorded “Big Pimpin’” in 1999. It came out in late 1999 and we shot
the video right around this time of year in 2000 at Carnival in Trinidad.
It was nine years ago, which is insane.
How much of a change did you see after that? How big of a turning point
was that for UGK?
There’s no way to downplay it at all. It really was. For the markets
that we already had, this was a victory for people who had been down
with UGK for years. Tellin’ everybody that UGK’s the shit, all of that
shit, and people would be like, “Naw, fuck that shit, it’s all about
this dude or that dude.” At the time it was all about Jay Z. And Jay
Z said, “I want to work with UGK.” Jay Z could work with anybody if he
wanted to. It was all good. We understood that if New York didn’t get
a chance to embrace UGK, it had nothing to do with the consumers in New
York not liking us, we had never been presented to them. I can recall
many times going up to New York and telling people, “I made ‘Front, Back,
Side to Side,’ I made, ‘Pocket Full Of Stones,’ I made, ‘One Day’.” People’d
be like, “Yo I never knew the same people made all those records!” Cause
there was no visuals attached to none of that shit.
After that, you and Pimp got on every song. It became some shit to really
collect every song y’all were on at the time. Y’all seemed to be featured
in some capacity on everybody’s stuff.
We always worked with people like Three-6-Mafia. You can tell people
who had maybe just jumped on the bandwagon and people who we had just
really wanted to record with us. At the same time that we had one of
the biggest Pop records of the year, we also had what is arguably the
biggest street record of the year, which is “Sippin’ on Sizzurp” with
Three-6-Mafia. It was really a one-two punch. You have to give Paul and
Juicy credit. The summer of 2000 was a UGK summer, but it wasn’t soley
because of UGK. We just got presented with two incredible opportunities
to make two incredible records that to this day still pop. Like it’s
not even a problem. These records are nine years old right now. “Big
Pimpin’” was recorded in the Fall of 1999, “Sippin’ on Sizzurp” was recorded
on Super Bowl Sunday 2000 in Atlanta.
On this new UGK album, are you personally piecing the album together?
What was the process like putting this album together without Pimp C?
We were in the process of making this album already. A lot of the concepts
and themes that you hear on this album were originally conceived during
the Underground Kings double-album session. A couple of these songs are
songs that grew out of those sessions. At the same time, a lot of the
production that Pimp was doing was not solo production. A lot of the
production on the last album were co-produced by some of his protégés.
DJ B-Do, Steve Below, Averexx. With the structure being there and a lot
of the production themes already set up, I was able to go into the studio
with the people who had been in the studio with Pimp, creating this music.
With the exception of Akon and Manny Fresh, the other producers on the
album are up and coming, and as close to the original Pimp C sound as
you’re gonna get. These are people that Pimp C personally was grooming.
You got DJ B-Do, who’s a member of the Underdogs from Port Arthur, Averexx
that’s also from Port Arthur, and Cory Mo from Houston and Steve Below
from Dallas. Everybody that we tried to get on this album, I wanted to
make sure the features made sense to UGK fans and that they made sense
to people that knew him personally. We had both known Lil Wayne since
he was a kid and Lil Wayne really wanted to be part of the album. We
didn’t want it to seem advantageous, you know? We got Big Gipp from the
Goodie Mob, E-40, B-Legit, 8Ball & MJG, people who definitely make
sense recording with UGK and people that if you been following UGK you
know that we fuck with.
I think that’s important because we’ve all heard some albums that have
come out after artists’ deaths with crazy features and way off-base shit
that doesn’t seem right. I don’t know if people understand the history
between UGK and Goodie Mob and The Click and 8Ball & MJG…
Something that people probably don’t even know is that UGK recorded a
“Dirty South” remix with Goodie Mob, but they never used it. This album
is mixed and mastered by Mike Dean, which is probably the best hands
you can get touching music right now. That’s history there. The video
is gonna be more of a retrospective. Like, I’m not in the video as far
as like set up shots in cars and silly shit like that. I’m really trying
to take UGK from what some people would call legendary status to what
I would like to see as iconic status. Not necessarily for me but for
Pimp, because of his contributions as a writer, as a producer and just
as a spearhead to the movement. People are just starting to see now,
in retrospect, how much of a contribution he really made. Not just to
the Southern Hip-Hop movement, but to Hip-Hop in general. And man I want
to thank a magazine like Murder Dog for even fucking existing. Out of
all the people who we ever wanted to call and get ads placed and get
the records rated, I think Murder Dog probably was the first glossy covered
magazine to call UGK and ask, “Can we do a story?” They were the first
magazine to call and offer us covers. All that type of shit. A lot of
UGK’s firsts as far as print media is concerned coincides with Murder
Dog. Looking back, on Hip-Hop, I’m not sure if a lot of us would have
touched as many people, or covered as much ground as we were able to
cover without the support of a magazine like Murder Dog. So for me, I
want to thank the magazine and all the people over the years, especially
Black Dog who was always a real big pusher for people like us. And yourself
Matt for actually trying to impress upon people the truth behind the
music we were trying to create. And to see through all the bullshit of
people trying to cloud us with and really see what Chad and I were really
trying to do with music. And we were really able to accomplish during
the course of our career just making real honest music from where we
were from. On behalf of the UGK family I want to thank journalists like
you who go out to the Port Arthurs, who go out to the Louisville’s and
go out to the Greenville’s and go out to the Jacksonville’s, and find
this music that’s viable. Find this music that’s relatable, that’s real
and true and giving motherfuckers an outlet. Much Love to Murder Dog,
for real.
