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I have horrible news! Pimp C is dead!
Member Since: 6/16/2006
Posts: 8,691
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I have horrible news! Pimp C is dead!
Rapper Pimp C Found Dead in Hollywood Hotel Room
Posted Dec 4th 2007 2:12PM by TMZ Staff
Filed under: Music, R.I.P.
Pimp C, real name Chad Butler -- and one half of the rap duo UGK, was found dead in a hotel room this morning. He was 33.
L.A. County Fire responded to a 911 call at the Mondrian Hotel, located on trendy Sunset Strip in Hollywood. They arrived to his sixth floor hotel room to find him dead in bed.
UGK is best known for appearing on the Jay-Z track "Big Pimpin'" in 2000, and more recently with Outkast on the song "International Player's Anthem (I Choose You)." Pimp C had just performed with fellow rapper Too Short at the "House of Blues" in L.A. on Saturday night.
Story developing ...
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Member Since: 7/24/2006
Posts: 4,281
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Whoa... RIP!
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Member Since: 4/6/2007
Posts: 15,583
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Member Since: 7/1/2007
Posts: 10,803
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Member Since: 5/17/2006
Posts: 6,429
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Holly **** i loved his music RIP
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Member Since: 10/8/2007
Posts: 4,711
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OMG! THEY ALSO DID 2STEP! OMMFG! =[!
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ATRL Senior Member
Member Since: 6/9/2002
Posts: 6,789
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OH
MY
GOSH
I am seriously stunned, and so ****in sad right now. UGK was one of my all time favorite groups, and this is just heartbreaking. just the same year too when UGK dropped one of their best albums, and by far the best single of any genre this year (International Players Anthem).
I am at a state of shock right now. huge R.I.P. to him.
Quote:
Originally posted by Houston Chronicle
Rapper Pimp C's death being treated as homicide
By JOEY GUERRA
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Pimp C, one-half of hip-hop duo UGK, was found dead Tuesday morning in his room at the Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood. A local police spokesman said the death is being investigated by its homicide division.
Police found the rapper, whose real name was Chad Butler, dead in his bed at the Mondrian Hotel after responding to a 911 call. According to Deputy Bill Brauberger, Butler died at 9:20 a.m. The call came three hours later.
Butler was 33 years old.
A statement by Pimp C's publicist said his manager "is asking that everyone please respect his family and those close to him at this time and refrain from rumors and innuendo.''
Pimp C's death follows a commercial peak for UGK. Its first studio album in five years, Underground Kingz, was released in August. The double-disc opus tallied six-figure sales and gave the group its first No. 1 album, behind the popular single and video Intl' Players Anthem (I Choose You).
The rapper had performed Saturday in Los Angeles with labelmate Too Short.
In addition to working with his UGK partner Bun B, Pimp C collaborated with rappers including Mike Jones and Chamillionaire. Those two took a Houston rap scene that he had nutured to a national audience.
"It's a sad day in the city. A legend has passed,'' said Jones, who traded verses with Pimp C on 2006 single Pourin' Up.
UGK's breakthrough was a long time coming. The Port Arthur duo formed almost two decades ago when Pimp C left a group called Mission Impossible to work with Bun B. A Mission Impossible song, Underground Kingz, gave the duo its name.
Some underground tapes circulated before the duo recorded Too Hard to Swallow in 1992. UGK recorded several albums for major label Jive, while also working on locally-produced recordings, some with Houston's late, legendary DJ Screw. Though big success took years, UGK had venerable status among Southern rappers.
"All I can really say is Pimp C is a true legend. As far as the South goes, as far as Houston goes, he was the definition of a true pioneer,'' said Houston rapper K-Rino, who also got his start in the '80s.
"(Pimp C) and UGK came along at a time - with the Geto Boys - and really hit the underground and then the mainstream when groups from the South weren't getting exposure. They knocked down a lot of doors and let a lot of people shine.''
UGK earned its first taste of A-list attention with a guest shot on Jay-Z's Big Pimpin'.
"I know a lot of guys that call themselves pimps, but he's a real pimp,'' Brooke Valentine told me in a 2006 interview. The Houston singer featured Pimp C on her single Dope Girl.
The rough and tumble lifestyle that informed some of UGK's music was sewn closely to Pimp C's life. The group's rise after the Jay-Z collaboration stopped when he was imprisoned in January 2002 after falling behind on community service required after pleading no contest to aggravated assault.
His label painted a kinder portrait of the artist. "He was truly a thoughtful and kind-hearted person,'' said Jive Records president and CEO Barry Weiss. "I've known Chad since he was 18, and we loved him dearly.''
Pimp C was paroled in December 2005 and promptly issued a solo album, Pimpalation, in 2006. It was certified gold.
He then got to work with Bun B on a UGK album. The 26-track Underground Kingz showcased a barrage of explicit lyrics, hard club beats and trademark Southern swagger. It also played up the duo's contrasting dynamic - Bun B's cool flow vs. Pimp C's more aggressive, animated rap attack.
The album's release was a point of contention between the group and its label. Underground Kingz was first slated for release in November 2006 but was held up. It was released nine months later. Pimp C was outspoken about his irritation at the way it was handled.
"The record was going to be thrown out there to the wolves, and they ... really didn't care,'' he said in an August interview.
"Make no mistake - this record business is prostitution.''
If Pimp C's death is ruled a homicide, he'll be the second area rapper slain in the past year and a half. Hip-hop artist John "Big Hawk'' Hawkins was shot and killed outside his home in 2006. The scene also lost Kenneth "Big Moe'' Moore, who died two months ago of a heart attack.
"The situation is we have to step our game up,'' K-Rino says. "The people who die, their job is done. They're examples for the people who are still here. We have to see what a person's death can teach us. What adjustments we can make on our life to make sure we get the best quality of life while we're still around.
"My prayers go out to his family. We lost a true legend, but more than that, he had friends and a family, he had children.''
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...s/5351186.html
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Member Since: 8/3/2006
Posts: 33,524
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I heard it on the radio and my heart dropped
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ATRL Senior Member
Member Since: 9/26/2001
Posts: 22,475
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Holy crap. Pimp C(UGK co-founder) is dead.
From the Associated Press:
Quote:
Originally posted by AP
LOS ANGELES - Pimp C, who spun searing tales of Texas street life into a key role in the rise of Southern hip-hop, was found dead in an upscale hotel on Tuesday. He was 33.
The rapper formed Underground Kingz with partner-in-rhyme Bun B while the pair was in high school, and their often laconic delivery paired with wittily dangerous lyrics influenced a generation of current superstars like Lil' Wayne. T.I. had the group on as guests when he remade their 1994 song "Front, Back and Side to Side" for his "King" album.
To a mainstream audience, Pimp C was best known for UGK's cameo on the Jay-Z hit "Big Pimpin'," and for "Free Pimp C" T-shirts and shout-outs, ubiquitous in rap several years ago while he was jailed on gun charges. On Tuesday, his MySpace page had been changed to read: "C the Pimp is FREE at last."
Born Chad Butler, Pimp C was found dead in a room at the Mondrian hotel, a longtime music industry hangout not far from the House of Blues on Sunset Strip, where he had performed on Saturday night alongside rap veteran Too $hort. Capt. Ed Winter of the Los Angeles County coroner's office said Butler had apparently died while in bed in his hotel room.
"At this time there's no signs of foul play," Winter said. "It appears to be possibly natural, but pending autopsy and toxicology we can't say the cause."
Manager Rick Martin identified Butler and his death was announced by publicist Nancy Byron.
"This morning saw the loss of a man that was not only a client, but a very dear friend at a time when he had the most to live for," Martin said in a statement. "He was my best friend and I will always love him."
Though they never enjoyed massive pop chart success, UGK's early CDs are considered landmarks for the then-burgeoning Texas hip-hop scene, which also featured the Geto Boys. Signed to a deal with Jive Records, they released "Too Hard to Swallow" in 1992, "Super Tight" two years later, and "Ridin' Dirty" in 1996, considered a rap classic.
Over laid-back beats, they laid out incisive details that remain Southern rap mainstays: descriptions of sex and conspicuous consumption, wood-grain steering wheels and triple-beam scales used to weigh drugs.
The duo's career was derailed when Pimp C was jailed for three years in 2002 on gun charges. But he got as much exposure as ever, as the "Free Pimp C" slogan spread.
An unauthorized album of Pimp C's freestyle rhymes was released while he was in prison. When he and Bun B finally put out an album this year, they felt such a need to re-establish themselves they titled their album "Underground Kingz," as if to underscore a new start.
Critics praised the CD, which included the hit "International Player's Anthem (I Choose You)," featuring OutKast. Pimp C's verse riffs on high-class women and cars: "I'm pullin' Bentleys off the lot. Smashed up the gray one, bought me a red. Everytime we hit the parking lot we turn heads," he raps.
Barry Weiss, CEO of Jive, said in a statement: "We mourn the unexpected loss of Chad. He was truly a thoughtful and kindhearted person. He will be remembered for his talent and profound influence as a pioneer in bringing southern rap to the forefront."
Butler, who grew up in Port Arthur, Texas, came from a musical lineage. His father was a professional trumpet player, and the rapper studied classical music in high school. He even received a Division I rating on a tenor solo at a University Interscholastic League choir competition.
"That's how I came up listening to everything," he told The Associated Press in a 2005 interview. "Music don't have no color or no face. It's a universal language. I think being exposed to all that kind of stuff influences the way I make records."
Pimp C is survived by a wife and three children.
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This is just depressing. I can't say that I was a GIGANTIC fan of UGK, but I loved their part in "Big Pimpin'", and I generally enjoyed listening to their music. We're losing too many well-known celebrities at such a young age. First, Casey Calvert, then Sean Taylor, and now, Pimp C. And UGK just had a #1 album. Just...terrible.
You will be missed, C.
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Member Since: 11/5/2005
Posts: 29,791
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WTF is with all these celebs or celeb's parents deaths
Kanye's mom, Martha Stewat's mom, Evel Knievel, Sean Taylor, Casey Calvert, Kevin DuBrow, Diana Ross' dad, Jonathan Rhys Myers' mom, & now Pimp C.
And all these deaths happened within the Nov-Dec, crazy!
But R.I.P. Pimp C you will be missed ...
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Member Since: 1/9/2004
Posts: 9,558
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^ I know, it's ****ing crazy! Within a span of weeks too... it's actually scaring me.
Well, I guess Pimp C really is free now, and off to a better blace. May he rest in peace.
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Member Since: 5/28/2006
Posts: 8,159
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Member Since: 6/29/2007
Posts: 3,761
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R.I.P. Pimp C!!!
And it is very weird that all of these deaths are happening so soon!
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Member Since: 10/18/2006
Posts: 6,954
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WOW. Their last album was amazing.
REST IN PEACE!
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Banned
Member Since: 7/28/2005
Posts: 9,146
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"Pimp C, the dick ain't free"
rip
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Member Since: 5/17/2006
Posts: 6,429
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I dont mean to sound insenestive but it always seems when ever i get into a new artist like ugk something happens to their members this is not the first time it happend either i am a bad curse
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Member Since: 12/20/2006
Posts: 18,138
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I dont know him but
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ATRL Senior Member
Member Since: 6/9/2002
Posts: 6,789
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great piece from my favorite music critic Tom Breihan on Pimp C:
Quote:
Pimp C is Dead
posted: 4:51 PM, December 4, 2007 by Tom Breihan
One day you're here, and then you're gone
Two years ago, Bun B met Pimp C outside the prison where Pimp had just finished serving four years. The pictures from that day just kill me: these two guys, who'd been through the absolute worst dregs of the music industry alongside each other, finally reunited, finally ready to take the world over now that the sound they'd pioneered together had swept the world. Pimp and Bun always had one of the most fascinating group dynamics in rap. Bun was the voice of hard-won wisdom, his virtuosic gravelly authoritative boom-rumble dispensing common-sense truisms without ever resorting to preachiness or cliche. Pimp, on the other hand, was the snarling nihilistic live-wire, the one who sneered the group's most vivid threats and come-ons. Even after serving time for aggravated assault, Pimp still acted like an unreformed knucklehead, talking **** on his peers in interviews without thinking twice about it and even instigating a low-level subliminal feud with Young Jeezy over cocaine prices earlier in the year, one that never really ignited probably because Jeezy wasn't willing to outright dis a legend like Pimp. Because besides being a volatile force, Pimp was also a musical visionary, a kid who translated years of musical training into rap beats, sliding mournful organs and slippery blues guitars under slow-thumping drums, creating a fuller, more expansive sound than just about anyone else in rap at the time. And Pimp was also responsible for some startling, beautiful moments of lyrical clarity, moments that felt even more powerful because Pimp was so outright oblivious to notions of rap positivity. On "One Day," Pimp even had, for my money, the single most poignant line in the history of his group: "My world a trip; you can ask Bun B, bitch, I ain't no liar / My man Bobo just lost his baby in a house fire / And when I got on my knees that night to pray / I asked God why you let these killers live and take my homeboy son away." Pimp and Bun lent each other power and context: two overwhelmingly different people who nonetheless supported each other through years of ********, who seemed eternally devoted to each other. I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to look at those post-prison photos again. Pimp C died this morning. He was 33.
It'll probably be a while before we know much about Pimp's death. Right now, only a few details have emerged. LA firemen responded to a 911 call earlier today and found Pimp dead in bed at the Hollywood hotel where he was staying. On Saturday night, he'd performed with Too Short at the House of Blues in LA, I show I would've loved to see. And that's it, that's all we know. I feel the exact same sense of overwhelming disbelief that I did when I found out ODB died four years ago. Like ODB, Pimp was an unpredictable and sometimes self-destructive figure whose life didn't necessarily get a whole lot easier once he became famous. Like ODB, he got out of prison shortly before dying. Like ODB, he was often frank about his drug use. And just like with ODB, I didn't ever think Pimp would actually die. UGK spent its entire lifetime dealing with record-label ********; the duo had only just finished up the contract with Jive Records they'd signed in 1992. That label had never managed to turn the duo into major stars even though they had a huge, reverential regional following pretty much from the beginning. After they recorded "Big Pimpin'" with Jay-Z (a move Pimp was initial reluctant to make since he was worried it would alienate his core audience), the label pushed Dirty Money, their next album, back for two years and completely failed to build on the success of the group's biggest-ever hit. And then Pimp went to prison just as Southern rap was enjoying its commercial ascent, staying there while Houston rap found its improbable spotlight moment in 2005. Even as he sat in prison, though, Bun turned his name into a hometown rallying cry. Pimp actually made good on his post-prison chance to build on that goodwill; he released a pretty good solo album in 2006, and then UGK released one of this year's great albums, topping the Billboard charts for the first time in their careers. And now he's dead, just as everything was starting to click. He had a whole lot more great work left in him.
Pimp was one of the greatest producers in rap history. His slow, murmuring organic funk beats left a sonic template for many of the greatest albums of the last fifteen years; it's hard to imagine how stuff like the classic run of Dungeon Family albums or, say, T.I.'s Trap Muzik would've sounded without him. He was also an indelible vocal presence. He always held his own with Bun B even though he had nothing like his partner's unreal technical command. He sang some gorgeous hooks. He gave some riveting interviews. With UGK, he released six albums, and every last one of them is worthy. The best of them, Ridin' Dirty, is one of my favorite rap albums of all time. He did some amazing things, and he will be missed. I can't believe he's really dead.
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http://blogs.villagevoice.com/status..._c_is_dead.php
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ATRL Senior Member
Member Since: 11/6/2002
Posts: 10,641
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Member Since: 6/22/2007
Posts: 272
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Pimp C, real name Chad Butler -- and one half of the rap duo UGK, was found dead in a hotel room this morning. He was 33.
L.A. County Fire responded to a 911 call at the Mondrian Hotel, located on trendy Sunset Strip in Hollywood. They arrived to his sixth floor hotel room to find him dead in bed.
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