UGK, the Port Arthur, Texas duo of Bun B and Pimp C, are legendary for a few reasons. There's Pimp C's indefatigable wit and ear for a hook, Bun's sonorous baritone, their taste in beats, and their sheer workmanlike attention to the craft of making great hip-hop. Regardless of the (many) specifics, the pair cemented themselves in 1999 as major figures in the national rap canon with their scene-stealing performance on Jay-Z's "Big Pimpin'."
Underground Kingz, UGK’s fifth album, was the one that pushed them into the discussion of global rap stars. It was the first of their albums to debut at No. 1, finally giving them the commercial success that they deserved after years of becoming underground icons. It was also their final album with both living members, as Pimp C died four months after its release. The album turns ten years old this month, and in reflection, here are the 25 best UGK songs—the ones that built the road to that album, and built their legacy beyond it.
25. "Protect and Serve"
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Album: Super Tight (1994)
Producer: Pimp C
From UGK’s second full-length effort, this funky, confrontational song samples both N.W.A.’s “Fuck The Police” AND Parliament’s “Flash Light." That alone makes the experience compelling, but the way the samples blend together, with effortless ease, makes it worthwhile.
24. "Short Texas"
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Album: Too Hard to Swallow (1992)
Producer: Pimp C
An ode to a tiny rural residential community in Texas from UGK's debut studio album, “Short Texas” is a snapshot of the duo at the start: aggressive rhymes, paired with storytelling that would become a hallmark of the group’s sound.
23. "Feds in Town"
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Album: Super Tight (1994)
Producer: Pimp C
Bun B is at his best doing what “Feds in Town” requires of him: weaving a long, sometimes unreliable tale about a hustle gone wrong, and then gone right.
22. "Diamonds and Wood"
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Album: Ridin' Dirty (1996)
Producer: N.O. Joe, Bun B, Pimp C
No group perfected the car song in rap like UGK. In that way, they’re kind of like rap’s answer to the pre-Pet Sounds Beach Boys. The way they describe what the naked eye might see as insignificant parts of a vehicle to help pinpoint status is fully on display here.
21. "Heaven"
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Album: Underground Kingz (2007)
Producer: Pimp C, N.O. Joe
The introspective and somewhat remorseful rap song is a genre unto itself. “Heaven” is especially heartbreaking now when you hear Pimp C wondering if there’s a heaven, and if he’ll make it there when his life is done, not knowing that it would be over mere months later. (Watch Complex's Pimp C documentary here.)
20. "The Pimp & The Bun" (f/ Ronald Isley)
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Album: UGK 4 Life (2009)
Producer: Mannie Fresh
From UGK 4 Life, the group’s final album, released after Pimp C’s death, “The Pimp & The Bun” has it all: Mannie Fresh on the beat, Ronald Isley on the hook, and a posthumous Pimp C verse that feels like it could live in any era.
19. "Something Good"
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Album: Too Hard to Swallow (1992)
Producer: Bernie Bismark
This song is great, in part because its sample of Rufus and Chaka Khan's “Tell Me Something Good” is predictable, and yet, as it swells and is cut up in the chorus, manages to be a delightful surprise. (Oh, and that's the legend Mike Dean on guitar.)
18. "I'm So Bad"
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Album: Too Hard to Swallow (1992)
Producer: Pimp C
The hallmark of old UGK, particularly on their first two albums, is how malleable the flows were. The dexterity made it possible for them to fit in on every coast. “I’m So Bad” is the perfect example of this: bass heavy, but also deftly lyrical.
17. Lil Keke "Chunk Up the Deuce" (f/ Paul Wall and UGK)
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Album: N/A
Underground Houston legend Lil Keke recruited UGK and Paul Wall for this 2006 screwed up Southern classic. It's decidedly regional, but—like all of Texas rap’s best work—sounds good everywhere.
16. "Cocaine" (f/ Rick Ross)
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Album: Underground Kingz (2007)
Producer: N.O. Joe, The BlackOut Movement, Pimp C
A highlight of Underground Kingz, “Cocaine” is perhaps most notable for its closing verse, delivered by just post Port Of Miami-era Rick Ross, one of many guest turns and cosigns for Ross during that era which helped catapult him to superstardom.
15. "Use Me Up"
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Album: Too Hard to Swallow (1992)
Producer: Pimp C
Another sample-driven song from Too Hard To Swallow with a slightly predictable but still brilliantly executed sample (Bill Withers’ “Use Me,”) this song also contains the line “she got it going on like fried chicken”—worth it for that alone.
14. "Wood Wheel"
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Album: Dirty Money (2001)
Producer: Pimp C, Bido
Though not particularly about a wood wheel entirely, this song, from the 2001 album Dirty Money, gave us a glimpse into Bun B’s political leanings at the time, confusing as they might have been: “Pro-smoke/Pro-choke/Anti-broke/Conservative liberal/Left-wing slangin’/Right wing hanging.”
13. "Murder"
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Album: Ridin' Dirty (1996)
Producer: N.O. Joe, Bun B, Pimp C
“Murder” is, for the most part, UGK at their best content level: boasting relentlessly for minutes on end with no real aim to the boasting other than to let you know they’re alive and still capable of it.
12. "Living This Life"
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Album: Underground Kingz (2007)
Producer: N.O. Joe, Joe Scorsese
A remorseful dirge on an album (Underground Kingz) that found itself with a lot of them, “Living This Life” samples “Free” by Goodie Mob and “Free At Last” by Al Green, though lyrically it is weighty—about the search for freedom, yes. But about not finding it on the other end.
11. "Everybody Wanna Ball"
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Album: UGK 4 Life (2009)
Producer: Cory Mo
This song is notable, if for no other reason, because it is the final song in which Pimp C opened a verse with “Smokin’ out/Pourin’ up.”
10. "Three Sixteens"
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Album: Super Tight (1994)
Producer: Pimp C, DJ DMD
The Bun B verse which opens “Three Sixteens” begins with “What’s up, motherfucker?” and evolves into the threat: “187 ways to rip your spine out any time you want to test,” and so the tone of this song is equal parts aggressive and deeply specific.
9. "Front, Back & Side to Side" (f/ Smoke D)
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Album: Super Tight (1994)
Producer: Pimp C
One of the key UGK car anthems, “Front, Back & Side To Side” has it all: a smooth beat that summons the windows down on a car in any season, a tale about riding slow down a street that feels like any street, and a hook that gets inside your head and never leaves.
8. "Feel Like I'm the One Who's Doin' Dope"
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Album: Too Hard Too Swallow (1992)
Producer: Pimp C
The hook samples a Scarface line from “Mind Playing Tricks On Me,” drawing a clear line between one iconic Texas rap group to another. There is a lot to love about the narrative qualities on this song, but to hear Pimp C go back and forth with the Scarface sample in the hook is a legendary moment.
7. "Ridin Dirty"
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Album: Ridin' Dirty (1996)
Producer: Pimp C, Bun B
A Houston rap classic, and the greatest ode to riding around in a vehicle with several illegal things inside. An ode to risk-takers, as it were.
6. "Underground Kingz"
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Album: Underground Kingz (2007)
Producer: Pimp C
The title track on their most widely celebrated album plays like a statement of intent. While some of UGK’s relentless boasting is for the sake of boasting, here it is to prove a point. “Underground Kingz” is a song recorded from the mountaintop, looking back on everything that got them there.
5. "Choppin' Blades"
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Album: Dirty Money (2001)
Producer: Pimp C, N.O. Joe
Another car anthem! This one, in particular, is about the specifics: candy-painted cars with blade rims. Also a song where Pimp C tells us that he prefers Polo bedding to Tommy Hilfiger, as we all do.
4. "Let Me See It"
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Album: Dirty Money (2001)
Producer: Pimp C, N.O. Joe
Most of this song consists of the words “Let me see it” repeated again and again, so it is a song about the nuances of romance when found, perhaps, at a strip club. It also contains one of the most famously visceral lines about the specifics of female beauty in rap history.
3. "One Day" (f/ 3-2 and Ronnie Spencer)
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Album: Ridin' Dirty (1996)
Producer: Pimp C, N.O. Joe, Bun B
A slowed down sample of the Isley Brothers’ 1974 album cut “Ain’t I Been Good To You” anchors this song, which is likely UGK’s most sentimental track. It is a song swelling with remorse and regret, which came on an album that wasn’t as heavy on those two sentiments when compared to their later work.
2. "Int'l Playas Anthem" (f/ OutKast)
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1. "Pocket Full of Stones"
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Album: Too Hard to Swallow (1992)
Producer: Pimp C
The first truly great UGK song, this song that UGK acclaim when it showed up on the Menace II Society soundtrack in 1993, shortly after it appeared on their debut studio album. From their, Bun B and Pimp C built a blueprint off of this sound, one that they were able to grow into and mature with for decades.
