"The game don't change, only the players" - Shabazz the Disciple

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Kung-Foolery



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FUCK!

UGK group member Chad “Pimp C.” Butler was found dead in a hotel room this morning, according to reports. Firefighters responded to a 911 call placed from the Mondrian Hotel on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood, California. The rapper was found dead in his bed in a sixth floor hotel room. Details are still emerging.

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Pimp C, one-half of hip-hop duo UGK, was found dead Tuesday morning in his room at the Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood. He was 33 years old.

Craig Harvey, chief investigator at the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office, said the rapper's body would be examined Wednesday but a cause of death will likely be deferred pending additional tests. His officers were still at the scene Tuesday evening.

"At this time there's no signs of foul play," Capt. Ed Winter of the coroner's office told the Associated Press later Tuesday. "It appears to be possibly natural, but pending autopsy and toxicology we can't say the cause."

L.A. County Fire found the rapper, whose real name was Chad Butler, dead in his bed at the Mondrian after responding to a 911 call by hotel security. The hotel released a statement that Pimp C's family called and said the rapper was to have checked out the day before.

"Security personnel went to Mr. Butler's room and found him in bed, apparently expired," according to the hotel.

A Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman said the death is being investigated by its homicide division.

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."

In Port Arthur, Butler's mother, Weslyn "Mama Wes" Monroe, said she spoke with her son by telephone last week and found him excited about his latest project, a collaboration with Oscar-winning rap group Three 6 Mafia.

"He was in L.A., doing what he loved most," Monroe said.

Pimp C's death follows a commercial peak for UGK. Its first studio album in five years, Underground Kingz, was released in August. The two-CD 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 helped build 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.

"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 rapper K-Rino, who also got his start on the local scene 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," said Brooke Valentine, a Houston-bred singer who 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 retail 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."

Rick Martin, UGK's manager, said Butler was looking forward to a new solo deal on Jive Records, a satellite radio show and a national cologne endorsement.

Pimp C is the second area rapper to die in the past few months. Kenneth "Big Moe" Moore died two months ago of a heart attack. Hip-hop artist John "Big Hawk" Hawkins was shot and killed outside his home in 2006.

"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."

Andrew Dansby contributed to this report.

joey.guerra@chron.com

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and then this truth hits:

RZA Interview
December 2nd, 2007 · 7 Comments
http://fatlacemagazine.rawkus.com/?p=670


We don’t just have The RZA’s vinyl killer killing records, we have a brand new RZA interview for that ass as well. Trust us, he doesn’t shy away from discussing the internal beefs that have cast a shadow over the release of ‘8 Diagrams’. And before you become one of those internet idiots wasting time writing, “Yo, ‘Big Doe Rehab’ kills ‘8 Diagrams’”, grow the hell up - you can have both…

FL: Is there a guiding theme for the new LP?

RZA: Yes, in my opinion. The first song on the album is called ‘Campfire’ and that sets the tone for the guiding theme. It’s called ‘8 Diagrams’ and straight away you hear the 8 precepts that he’s saying. What the intro is saying is what I feel we need in the world for men. It’s saying, ‘how can I be a good man?’



FL: Is it difficult to bring that into the Wu, with there being so many different competing elements?

RZA: It is kinda difficult sometimes. But as the producer of the group, and The Abbot – I didn’t make myself The Abbot, this was a title that was given to me by the other Wu-Tang members. So you gave me the title, you gave me the power, I’ll use it. But I’ll use it not just for my personal benefit, not just for their personal benefit, but for the benefit of what the Wu-Tang stands for. Wu-Tang is not just about us, it’s about the world. Somebody asked me the other day, ‘when you make solo albums and soundtracks and the Wu-Tang album, what’s the difference?’ On my solo album, it’s my duty to make sure I convey the solo artist’s feelings to the world. Doing movie scores or a soundtrack, I have to take that film and the director’s vision and make sure I satisfy their vision. But on a Wu-Tang album, that belongs to the world. That’s something I’ve learned myself and I didn’t learn that until 1998 and that’s when I went and did an album called ‘The World According to RZA’. In 1993, if you’d have asked me about hip-hop, it belonged to me. I didn’t care about anybody else – ‘Bring Da Ruckus’, ‘Wu Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthin’ to Fuck With’, ‘Protect Ya Neck’ – I wasn’t playing! But as I grew up, and I’m seeing black kids, white kids, Mexican kids, Indian kids, I’m seeing a rainbow coalition and realising it’s bigger than me. Some kids came up to me recently and they weren’t even around in 1997 for ‘Wu-Tang Forever’ but they got it and the guy was like, ‘Yo, I learned so much knowledge from that record. Just the references you make, that I cross-referenced.’ It helped enhance his own spirit and knowledge. That’s what it’s all about – Wu-Tang has become a source of information and not just about our ghetto and our roughness and our toughness and our personal entities, but a source of information for people to get their own thing and move on. So when I do Wu-Tang I don’t it for myself, I do it for the world.


FL: So do you think someone like Raekwon needs to remember that he’s only 1/8th of the group?

RZA: I just read a little book of interviews that the GZA did in Germany, and when I read it, he just says so many things that make sense. He says that when he does his own projects, he gets to go into his own world, but when he’s with the Wu, he’s 1 piece, and that’s better because no 1 member is stronger than the whole group. I was happy to hear that not just come from me.



FL: Are those tensions harder to control now, given that all the members have their own fanbases and degrees of stardom?

RZA: In a way it does but, really, Wu-Tang started with tension. Some of the guys were not as close to each other as they have become. Ghostface and Raekwon are considered to be Batman and Robin, but they were enemies in the neighbourhood. Ghost was my man and Rae was my man. There’s another guy, Oli ‘Power’ Grant who runs Wu-Wear, him and Rae were partners, and Ghost was the enemy. I’m talking about mortal enemies. But they were always real tight with me. My house was neutral – people would always put their guns on the table, to use a metaphor. And when they left, there’s no telling what would happen. Now recently Power was telling me I had to do something, as he was pretty upset about the Ghost comment. Me, I don’t like to get into it like that, but he said that it wasn’t time for the Uncle shit I’d been doing through the years, it’s time to say something and it’s important for people to know what’s been going on and where I stand at. And he told me, ‘14 years ago when you told me to swallow all that beef with me and Rae and Ghostface, I swallowed it, but the day you arranged a meeting between us, I had my gun’. He was ready not to swallow it until he saw me. I didn’t even know it was that close. Mind you, Ghost is a superhero – you’re not gonna catch Ghost. Ghost will beat 5 or 6 niggas by himself, I’ve seen him do it. He ain’t scared of nobody, never has been, never will be. The point I’m making is, it’s not like we started out without tension. People don’t know that U-God and Method Man had hand-to-hand fights until we had to throw them off the bus. You know, there was a lot of shit. Me and Ol’ Dirty fighting because he wanted to go to Def Jam but I’d done the deal with Elektra. I had the plan for what I saw was right.


FL: Well, in the early years, Wu-Tang was described as a dictatorship with a five year plan. After that, you took your hands off the reins. Do you regret doing that?

RZA: Well, I won’t say I regret it, because you can’t regret life, but I do see the difference. Right now I guess I’m putting the reins back on by having the final word on the Wu, and now I’ve got to face what Raekwon’s saying about not getting to voice an opinion. Well, you did have a chance to voice your opinion, you just had a time limit to voice your opinion. I’ll listen to what people have to say, but after a certain time the vote is in.


FL: What did you make of Raekwon calling you a ‘hip-hop hippie’?

RZA: Now I don’t like the word hippie. When he said it, I thought, ‘Hippie? I’m the most Hip-Hoppest nigger in the world!’ I stay hip-hop, I never even changed over to the other side of hip-hop, the bling side. I kept it hoodie and a pair of boots – you always see me like this, and I could throw on the best of the best. It offended me a little but, at the same time, Raekwon’s the slang master, so I ain’t taking it like he meant to shit on me because I know he’s so rich with his words.


FL: Does the glare of the internet, where there’s always a camera pointed at you and a way of disseminating it, make it harder to keep the Clan together?

RZA: It’s harder, I would say, because you can say something on film, and then change your mind 20 minutes later. That’s why you’ve got to be careful. Me and Raekwon had a conversation about the record – he gave me his opinion, gave me his vote. He didn’t give me a bad vote, he gave me a 7. I’ll take a 7 from Rae, because his 7 might mean the fans give me an 8 or 9, but I’ll go back and try to get an 8 from you. So I went back and I changed a few things. I put the song ‘Unpredictable’ back on there. I’d taken it off as it was a bit Bobby Digital and I didn’t think we needed a Wu song with me talking about my dick. So I had to go back in and make it more amicable. So I sent that version out and people said they liked it more. GZA gave it an 8. When I first asked him, I knew he was being kinda sarcastic, but he said, ‘I give it a 5 and a half’. I was like, ‘Whoa’, but I never argue with him ‘cause he’s my teacher. So I had to humble myself to that. I tried to tell everyone, ‘Don’t take one day on this shit, take two weeks. Listen to it, this is not a quick fix. This is not a hamburger, this is vegetables. I know you don’t like to eat your vegetables, but you’ve got to, to get the nutrients.’ So then he came back to me with an 8 after I re-did things.



FL: Do you feel the pressure of a ‘comeback’ album?

RZA: It’s a continuation. The Wu-Tang saga continues. It’s not a comeback because we’ve all been active in all forms of entertainment. Also, we did tours without records being out, and I’ve seen bigger crowds the last two years than I’ve seen in my life. When we toured with Rage Against the Machine this year – and they haven’t had an album out – you’re seeing 70,000 kids each night in New York. In San Francisco, it got so crazy the police had to come. We’re bigger than ever, with no record out. That shows how important we are, how it’s about more than us telling our drug stories, our life stories, our turmoils. It’s about us adding a little wisdom, a little spirituality, a little consciousness, a little brotherhood. We’ve always had brotherhood, with all our other crews. And sometimes the Clan members are mad about that, maybe it’s because of having 8 famous guys, you’ve got 100 famous guys. But one thing I explain to them is that we saved our neighbourhood. More than that. We saved our neighbourhood in Staten Island, we saved parts of Brooklyn where Dirty, Prodigal Sun and Killah Priest lived, we saved Ohio with Killarmy, we saved a lot of families. It all comes back down to that one kid who walked around Staten Island for months – and people thought I was crazy because I used to walk and think and talk. I always say walk. Jesus walked across the Middle East teaching people. You get so much inspiration and knowledge from walking and thinking. So I walked around Staten Island until I got an epiphany. It took me a while to get it, but once I got it, I had it. I knew what I wanted to do. I went to Ghost first and said ‘Wu-Tang Clan’. Then it started to spread and other neighbourhoods were hearing about us. Some people were acting like they weren’t with it, because they didn’t like the Chinese shit. Guys like Pop the Brown Hornet wanted to make it GP Wu, because they were the Gladiator Posse from Stapleton and Park Hill was called DED Posse – Dick ‘Em Down. I combined ‘em both to Wu-Tang but those two neighbourhoods stay at war, although I had ‘em at peace. There were some guys who were on that ghetto shit and weren’t fucking with the Wu. And then when we blew up, they were like, ‘Yeah, we’re Wu’. And they were, I was bringing everybody. But they went separate. Even Shyhiem. Shyhiem was my student, but he went with GP, and GP wasn’t pure in the heart like that so they disintegrated. Had they been pure, and realised I had a vision, they would have got further. That’s what I was trying to tell the Clan on this album – trust me. Right after the ‘American Gangster’ premiere, we had this meeting, and I think it’s the meeting that triggered Raekwon’s comments. This meeting felt pretty deep for me. I invited everybody to the premiere, the only ones that showed up were Method Man and Inspektah Deck. That hurt me. They gave me 20 tickets – they didn’t gave anybody else 20 tickets – because I wanted to bring the Wu. I felt disappointed because I felt it would be a real good look for all of us to come together. So we had a meeting, and everybody starts voicing their opinions. And I wanted their opinions, because I wanted to see if I could satisfy the crew. I said, ‘If y’all ain’t satisfied, it’s gonna fuck me up.’ Harsh words were going back and forth. I had to come hard. I said, ‘Y’all have been making records without me for 6 years, and the shit ain’t go nowhere. The shit didn’t sell nothing.’ And then they’re saying, ‘Your shit has been weak’. My shit has been weak? ‘Kill Bill’? I’ve been involved in a lot of good things. But I wasn’t gonna front, I said, ‘Without connecting with you, my stuff has never had the high standard that it’s been with Wu-Tang.’ But it’s not that they’re not dope MC’s, and I’m not a dope producer. When we’re apart, it’s cool, but when we’re together it’s great. We don’t know why it’s great. Who knows why peanut butter and jelly taste so good together? They weren’t made for each other, but put them together and kids go crazy. We have a special chemistry that we don’t even know, but the people accept it for what it is. I was telling Meth, come back and rock with the Wu. I checked out his solo shows, 2000 people here, 1500 people there. Raekwon show, 700 people, maybe a1000 there. I know they don’t need me and I don’t need them, but wouldn’t they rather be seeing 10,000 motherfuckers in front of them when they’re rapping? After all these years, you want to rap in front of 500 motherfuckers? When you do Wu, you get the opportunity to rap to the world. You might only get 5 lyrics out, but they’ll be remembered by the whole world. All of the solo albums we’ve got out, nobody knows the lyrics like that. I don’t even know their lyrics. This new album got me listening to their lyrics again, and I realise how dope they all are. I was trying to explain to them, sometimes we don’t realise what it is we’ve got, but we’ve got it and we should never, ever doubt it. But Raekwon walked out not convinced, I guess.


FL: How was it recording without ODB? Did you miss his spirit?

RZA: Oh, we definitely missed his spirit. I saw Meth got asked the same question in an interview, and he was like – I only ever saw him in the studio one time anyway. It was hard for me. When Dirty first came home from jail, after all the shit he’d been through, and I was working on the Masta Killa album, ‘No Said Date’, making a few beats, he heard that album and said, ‘Out of everybody in the crew, Masta Killa is the only one that’s still Wu-Tang’. He wasn’t tainted. And I told Masta Killa. He got his name because Masta Killa is the guy who wasn’t part of Shaolin, he came to Shaolin and went through all the training in 36 Chambers, and became the Masta Killa. He saw us as his teachers. So I said to him that he’d become the best student. And then Raekwon’s mouth was healing, and right about the time he did ‘State of Grace’, he was back. If you ask me, Rae’s the illest MC. To my ears, Rae is fucking up any rapper out there, but he went through a transitional phase because his voice had gone. Having Genius on a track like ‘Starters’, talking about women – he doesn’t usually do that – he got a little ODB in him.


FL: There must have been a lot of emotion in the studio recording ‘Life Changes’.

RZA: Oh yeah. A lot. Meth was the first to do his verse. But I never got a verse from Ghost, which I think would have been deep because he knew Dirty for years. Me, Dirty and Ghost was running around from 1989 to 1993. That was the team…

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peace to Jody from Universal, peace to DJ Fase, peace to Kotep Omegatron, peace to 4th Pyramid AND PEACE TO MO, THE FUCKING BEATMAKER OF THE FUTURE TO ME!!! You all made my Tuesday amazing, hanging out at Andy Pool hall for the Ghostface Killah CD release party. Thank you!

AND THANK YOU TO ZION FOR REMINDING ME ABOUT HOW TO MAKE EXPLOSIONS HAPPEN INTERNALLY AND HOW THERE IS ONLY TWO THINGS IN US: STARLIGHT AND BLACK HOLES. I WILL SHINE!

Mindbender loves you, and needs to reflect on another shitty moment in hip hop. At least Pimp C's death is not a murder...

keep ya head up, y'all