Bun B has revealed that UGK turned down doing a sequel to “Big Pimpin'” with JAY-Z.
Appearing on Math Hoffa’s My Expert Opinion show alongside Statik Selektah, with whom he recently released the album TrillStatik 3, the Texas rap legend explained that his and Pimp C‘s label, Jive Records, wanted them to do a “Big Pimpin’ 2,” but they rejected the request due to both creative and financial reasons.
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“UGK was Pimp’s baby and he would put his heart and soul into it,” Bun said. “And he didn’t wanna do all of that to get to this point and do one song with somebody and have his legacy perverted. That was the way he looked at it.”
He added: “When we were getting ready to do the next album [2001’s Dirty Money], the label, Jive, was like, ‘Let’s do a ‘Big Pimpin’ 2.’ Let’s buy a JAY-Z verse, let’s buy a beat from Timabaland, let’s get a video from Hype [Williams] and let’s do it again, boys!'”
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After revealing that UGK were “$2.5 million in the hole” to their label at that point, Bun questioned whether another big-budget collaboration was economically possible.
“I was like, ‘If I don’t do a song with JAY-Z and Timbaland, do I still get a Hype Williams video?'” he recalls asking. “It was never, ‘No.’ They were like, ‘Why wouldn’t you want that?’ What? Besides being $2.5 million in the hole from the first song we recorded?”
When asked if a song-for-song swap deal was ever on the table, Bun said he thinks Pimp C wouldn’t have viewed a JAY-Z verse as “equal value to him.”
The Port Arthur native also recently revealed that the late Pimp C initially did not want to do the original “Big Pimpin'” with JAY-Z out of respect for 2Pac.
Recalling the time they were approached to do the song, Bun B said on The Steven Sulley Study podcast: “JAY-Z had been introduced to UGK by a big DJ in New York named Clark Kent. And he’s like, ‘I like these guys, I wanna work with them.’
“And Pimp C did not want to fuck with people that 2Pac did not fuck with, because he thought 2Pac was the best judge of character.”
He continued: “When that first call came from JAY-Z, we were at the house in Atlanta, and [Pimp C] looked up at the wall. And he just stared at the picture. And I’m like, ‘What are you doing?’
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“And he said, ‘I’m thinking what would 2Pac do right now? And 2Pac wouldn’t want me to fuck with him.’ That’s why I said, I’m not coming to New York.”
“Big Pimpin'” eventually came together after Jay and Pimp settled their differences over dinner. Taken from the former’s 1999 album Vol. 3… Life and Times of S. Carter, the song cracked the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 and remains one of both JAY-Z and UGK’s biggest hits.
