Bun B

Since the early 1990s, Bun B has commanded respect as a commanding yet widely admired figure in hip-hop, an icon of Southern rap whose straightforward rhymes arrive with calculated sharpness. He reached prominence alongside Port Arthur, Texas native Pimp C in UGK, whose run of Top 20 albums encompassed the gold-certified Ridin' Dirty from 1996 and the number-one Underground Kingz in 2007, which housed their Grammy-nominated OutKast collaboration “International Players Anthem (I Choose You).” During UGK’s strongest period, Bun B launched his solo career with the Top Ten Trill in 2005, then delivered the similarly successful II Trill in 2008 and Trill O.G. in 2010. Later entries Trill O.G.: The Epilogue in 2013 and Return of the Trill in 2018 kept his profile intact as a new wave of artists drew from his catalog. Between 2019 and 2022, Mo Trill, TrillStatik, and TrillStatik 2 found him collaborating with producers Cory Mo and Statik Selektah.

Born Bernard Freeman, Bun B teamed with Pimp C to establish UGK in the late 1980s after the dissolution of their prior group, Four Black Ministers. The duo landed at Jive and, beginning with Too Hard to Swallow in 1992, issued a sequence of commercially viable Southern gangsta rap albums. Although Bun B started the side venture Mddl Fngz in 2000, UGK remained his central focus until Pimp C received an eight-year prison sentence in 2003 for aggravated gun assault. Bun B continued alone, contributing to numerous tracks by other artists before issuing the mixtape Legends and his Rap-a-Lot debut Trill in 2005, a Top Ten release later certified gold. Pimp C’s early release at the end of 2005 allowed Bun B to rejoin UGK, whose 2007 chart-topping Underground Kingz featured the hit single “International Players Anthem (I Choose You)” with OutKast. Following Pimp C’s accidental death in December 2007, Bun B resumed solo work.

His second album, II Trill, appeared in May 2008 and became his strongest showing to date, climbing to number two on the Billboard 200 while simultaneously leading the R&B/hip-hop, rap, and independent charts. The 2010 follow-up Trill O.G. reached number four on the Billboard 200. Trill O.G.: The Epilogue arrived in 2013 with contributions from Big K.R.I.T., Rick Ross, 2 Chainz, Raekwon, and additional guests, plus posthumous Pimp C features on “Cake” and “Don’t Play with Me.” After focusing more on pursuits such as lecturing at Rice University and supplying only occasional guest verses, Bun B issued Return of the Trill in 2018. That project received production support from Big K.R.I.T. and El-P, whose Run the Jewels appeared on “Myself,” alongside guest spots from T.I., Lil Wayne, Leon Bridges, and Gary Clark, Jr. He soon released TrillStatik, a collaboration with Statik Selektah that included Method Man, Fat Joe, and Westside Gunn. Two further joint efforts arrived in 2022: Mo Trill, recorded with Cory Mo and fronted by the rolling anthem “Hesitate” featuring Talib Kweli, David Banner, and Tobe Nwigwe, followed months later by TrillStatik 2, whose creation was broadcast live from the Sweet Chick restaurant on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and featured K.R.I.T., Paul Wall, and Boldy James. The subsequent year, Bun B opened a permanent Houston location for his previously pop-up Trill Burgers restaurant.