Triller: UGK by UGK

Two years ago, while Pimp was in prison, Bun B released Trill, an beautifully titled album which was extremely good, if for nothing else than Young Jeezy’s two show-stopping cameos and the fact that Bun is extremely competitive, which can get fun on an album featuring TI, Jay-Z, and Scarface. But Bun never seemed entirely comfortable without Pimp C’s beats or lyrical foil. Back in 1992, they created a brand of muscular drums and soul in the cracks and Bun and Pimp, one guttural, the other nasally, talking about drugs and women and street codes and, above all of that, fate and god.

That whole ’92 sound was jumbled and faint on Trill, but with the return of Pimp C and his production on Kingz comes the synergy that still makes “Pocket Full of Stones” so chilling and real even though it was released at the same time as Kris Kross’s “Jump.” Kingz leans often towards anthems. These songs – like “The Game Belongs To Me” and “How Long Can It Last” – are made in that ‘92 mould but by a group with fifteen more years of skin in the game, so the songs are recognizable and glorifying of UGK’s legend, but also dexterous and evocative. There’s patience and a reflective instinct at play here too. Put this all together and you get lines that are simply iconic, like Pimp C’s “It’s been a long time since I hustled on the block / but very corner that I hit I left it screwed up and chopped.”

There are missteps on this album, often in the same vein as the weaker songs on Trill: side jaunts away from the proven formula. Take those away, though, and you essentially have a greatest hits album of all new material. Kinda like Brett Favre 2007, if that makes any sense. If it doesn’t, just understand: this is the best rap group in Texas history, and while they’ve sounded rawer and hungrier in the past, UGK has never sounded better or smarter or more adept at their art than they do on Kingz.

As Bun raps on “Tell Me How Ya Feel” off Kingz: “I’m the son of the struggle / the godchild of the grind / the product of the product / and the cousin of crime.” He may have felt that way back in ’96, but it took him until 2007 to know how to rap it.