Sweet Jones: Pimp C's Trill Life Story

Ever read one of those overly comprehensive books about The Beatles and find a weirdly specific anecdote about the fateful day that John Lennon ate a chicken salad sandwich and decided to write “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” a few days later? It’s common to find writers waxing poetic about every inane action of canonized rock bands, but it’s rare to find a rap book that matches that level of obsessive detail when it comes to rap artists. Julia Beverly’s Sweet Jones: Pimp C’s Trill Life Story is one such book, an epic 726-page tome that explores every intricacy of the late UGK member’s life to a staggering degree.

For your average rap fan born North of the Mason-Dixon line, Chad “Pimp C” Butler came to public prominence with his show-stealing appearances with Bun B on Jay-Z’s “Big Pimpin” (one of my top five favorite verses ever) and Three 6 Mafia’s “Sippin on Some Syrup.” But in addition to those singles, he helped create Super Tight, Ridin’ Dirty, and Dirty Money, classic albums that helped legitimize Southern rap during the height of East Coast/West Coast dominance, inspiring Texas rappers such as Slim Thug, Z-Ro, and Paul Wall to try their luck at breaking into the mainstream.

Julia Beverly was right there to see it all as the editor and publisher of OZONE Magazine, the South’s answer to The Source and XXL. This book is a passion project by someone hell bent on clarifying Pimp C’s history, an intensely personal mission that frequently finds the author exhibiting an atypical closeness with her subject (on the About The Author page, there are photos of her with Chad and his mother).

The book highlights how Pimp C’s obvious talent as a rapper developed over time but it also makes note of his relatively unheralded skills as both a singer and a producer. He was singing Italian sonnets at Carnegie Hall with his choir at age 16. We learn that he became a producer out of necessity because “niggas kept fuckin’ [them] out of [their] money” when UGK tried to buy beats from outside beatmakers. Chad was influenced to “put some music” into his instrumentals by his stepfather Norwood Monroe, helping to develop UGK’s signature sound, a smooth synthesis of beats and live instrumentation that would subsequently influence producers like Cash Money’s Mannie Fresh.

We learn the sordid details of UGK’s tumultuous relationship with Jive Records, including scans of the actual record contract they signed and everything they bought with their first big payday (Bun spent $20,000 of the Too Hard To Swallow advance on shotguns). A partially redacted FBI memo investigating UGK and Chad Butler in 2006 is included in the book. Every obscure aspect of UGK’s mythology is explored, from the use of PCP-laced blunts during the recording of Super Tight to the history behind the house fire referenced on “One Day” all the way down to a copy of the Houston Police Department incident report that would put Pimp C behind bars for four years. It’s a joy to add context to Pimp C’s music and life that may have remained permanently within the group’s inner circle without Beverly’s research.

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That said, this book certainly could’ve used an editor. Beverly claims she pulled from interviews with over 250 people for this book, and it certainly feels like it. The footnotes are out of control. After a particularly irrelevant passage about Pimp C quitting his childhood job at Wendy’s, there’s a footnote that raises the possibility that he may have actually worked at Whataburger, but Beverly was unable to verify. Later on, there’s a footnote to helpfully explain that New York City is occasionally called the Big Apple.

Beverly’s completist tendencies have her ending the book with photos she took at Pimp C’s mother’s funeral, a point-by-point timeline of every notable moment in Chad’s life organized by date, beginning with the birth of his father in 1946 and an exhaustive list of every song Pimp ever appeared on, including demos. This may all seem insane and unnecessary, but you can’t help but be disarmed by the sheer enthusiasm and archival mania required to put together a record of history like this. Think of the low-budget D.I.Y. production of Sweet Jones: Pimp C’s Trill Life Story as a literary parallel to the process of UGK self-producing and individually assembling tapes for their debut The Southern Way. The execution might not be perfect but it’s worth checking out if you’re obsessed with the ephemera of Southern rap.

Rollie Pemberton is also known as rapper and producer Cadence Weapon. Follow him on Twitter.