UGK

Previously: Bun B Shares The Stories Behind Five Of His Best Verses UGK Affiliate Cory Mo On Learning From Bun B, Pimp C, Talib Kweli And OG Ron C

On this day, March 31st, in hip-hop history... 2009: Five years ago from this day, UGK released their 6th and final album UGK 4 Life, roughly a year and a half after the death of group member Pimp C. Bun B commented stating “UGK 4 Life is the final studio album from my late great brother Chad Butler AKA Pimp C and myself," he said in a press release. "It is my sincere hope t...

Big Boi follows up his “CPU 2.0” release with a new mash-up from Vicious Lies And Dangerous Rumors. On his third remix, the OutKast member mashes up “Gossip” with Blue Oyster Cult’s “Godzilla,” which appeared on their album Spectres. As you might have expected from Big Boi,...

XXL highlights rappers who were cheated by the prestigious award ceremony.

It's often said that hip-hop is no country for old men. It's a statement that's been put to the test this year as more and more of rap's biggest stars have started to grow old with grace, releasing albums that touch on the importance of legacy while still trying to forge new ground...

The word “exotic” is a huge misnomer sometimes, but it’s probably the only word you can possibly use to describe the sound of hip-hop mixed with a hint of some dholki or bansuri. Those are Indian instruments in case you didn’t know, but adding those sounds along with the multi-linguistics of Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, etc. bring a certain someth...

"Once upon a time not long ago/When people wore pajamas and lived life slow," rapped Slick Rick on "Children's Story" off The Great Adventures Of Slick Rick, conjuring up one of hip-hop's most iconic and lasting images with 15 simple words...

When XXL caught up with Bun B on the phone, he was exiting his hip-hop and religion class that he jointly teaches on Tuesdays and Thursdays with Dr. Anthony Penn at Rice University. Perhaps due to the immense respect he’s earned as an iconic figure in the Houston rap scene, Bun’s students refer to him with esteem as “Professor Freeman” while in class. It's fitting that a fi...

For Atlanta-based, Houston-bred rapper/producer Cory Mo, his first solo album in more than a decade came about out of nowhere. "I was in Atlanta and Kweli came down for a show, and I ended up picking him up from the airport, and I was like, check out some of my new shit," he said in an interview at the XXL offices last week. "I ...

Ah yes, the almighty dollar. Or the Pound, the Euro, the Lira, Rupee, whatever. Money is money and it wants you to spend it. In rap, it’s its own unit of currency that funds dreams and delusions of grandeur, but, hey, we love it, right? ...

Yesterday evening, the Internet was abuzz with the leak of Drizzy Drake's newest opus, "Wu-Tang Forever," from his upcoming third album, Nothing Was The Same.  On the song, Drake transforms the aggressive stomp of Wu-Tang Clan's classic 1997 single, "It's Yourz," into the quiet storm, hate-fuck anthem of the summer. It's quite po...

From new bangers from 2 Chainz, Big Sean and Drizzy to major media fuckups from Riley Cooper and Don Lemon to simple appreciations of success—with a couple celebrations of classic releases in between—hip-hop has had a lot to say in the past week, and they took to Twitter to say it. We've coll...