Pimp C

Chad Lamont Butler was born on the twenty-ninth of December 1973 in Crowley, Louisiana, the only child of Charleston Butler, a trumpet player, and Weslyn "Mama Wes" Butler. He was raised in Port Arthur, Texas, a Gulf Coast city whose oil refineries and deep musical roots shaped the sound he would carry into the world. Steeped in his father's horns and his region's blues and soul, he took the name Pimp C and set out to give the American South its own unmistakable voice in hip-hop.

In 1987, still a teenager, he joined with Bernard "Bun B" Freeman to form Underground Kingz — UGK — as rapper and producer both. Signing to Jive Records in 1992, the duo issued Too Hard to Swallow, followed by Super Tight (1994) and the revered Ridin' Dirty (1996). Pimp C's warm, live-instrument production and unhurried Southern drawl became a blueprint, insisting on the dignity of a regional sound the industry had long overlooked.

National recognition came through the 2000 Jay-Z single "Big Pimpin'." A prison term for a probation violation interrupted his career in the mid-2000s; released in December 2005, he returned with the solo album Pimpalation (2006). In 2007, UGK's self-titled album delivered "International Players Anthem (I Choose You)" with OutKast — a crowning achievement of Southern rap.

Pimp C was found dead in a Los Angeles hotel room on the fourth of December 2007, at thirty-three. He is honored as the architect of a Southern sound that refused to be small, and as a maker who gave his region a voice that still resounds.