The Tanning Interview with Bun B
date October 28, 2011 at 10:25 am
Since Bun B came in the game two decades ago with the late Pimp C as part of the duo UGK (Underground Kingz), he has consistently become more popular and well-known nationally and internationally by fans of all races, no doubt aided by an appearance on Jay-Z’s smash, “Big Pimpin’,” and collaborating with fellow southern hip-hoppers, Three 6 Mafia, on “Sippin’ On Some Sizzurp.” But his insane ability to stay relevant has had just as much, if not more to do with his impervious artistic integrity and openness to collaborating with new school artists. At an age where many rappers are clinging on to careers, the 38-year-old Bun has settled in comfortably in his role as a rap OG, even taking on the responsibility of teaching a hip-hop and religion course at Rice University. In this no-holds-barred interview, Bun B takes us back to his Texas roots to recall how he used to get pulled over on his way to do shows, why UGK wouldn’t talk about Sizzurp in interviews, what racial slur Jive wouldn’t allow him to use as a nickname on wax, and tackles an ugly issue that still lurks in the wake of hip-hop’s globalization—the usage of the “N” word.
Interview by Daniel Isenberg
Let’s start by talking about where you were raised in Port Arthur, Texas, the same hometown as Janis Joplin. What was the racial makeup of your neighborhood and the high school you attended?
My particular neighborhood was a fairly black neighborhood. My next door neighbor was white, but everyone else on my block was black. I went to two high schools; Lincoln High School in Port Arthur, which was about 95 percent black, but they had a magnet school program so I would go there too. Then I would go to my home school, Jefferson High School, and the demographic changed drastically there. That school was like 40 percent white, 35 percent black, maybe 15 percent Hispanic, and we had a very large Vietnamese population in Port Arthur as well.
Were you friendly with kids outside your race growing up?
Oh yeah, absolutely. I had a great mix of friends, especially being in different magnet programs and extracurricular activities, and also because my home school was the mixed school. My town had a fair mix of people, but the exact town next door to my town is called Bridge City, and there’s a bridge that separates my town from the next town over. And in Bridge City, there were no minorities. And it’s still all white. And my town is about 20 miles from Jasper where they dragged James Byrd [to death], and 20 miles in the other direction is Vidor, Texas, which is infamous for being an all-white town.
Was Bridge City a place you were brought up being told you weren’t supposed to go to?
It’s not so much that you weren’t supposed to go, because to drive to Louisiana you had to go through Bridge City, but it was always understood that you never did anything more than at the most stop for gas. Bridge City always had a great price on gas. But never more than that, and never at night.
Were there stories or Urban Legends told to you that made you stay away?
Not so much Bridge City, but Vidor, Texas was the regional hub for the [Ku Klux] Klan. Bridge City is an all-white town that doesn’t really talk about it, but Vidor, Texas was very adamant about wanting no minorities. Like, you don’t even stop for gas in Vidor. If you gotta piss, you hold it.
In Vidor, say if you played football in the ’60s and ’70s, and even into the ’80s, if you would go to [an away game there], instead of signs like “Beat The Bears” or “Go Lions,” they would have “Go Home Nigger” signs. Parents would go, and everyone would ride out and go home together, just to make sure everyone got home safe.
Do you remember any specific instances growing up where you were verbally or physically attacked because of your race?
No, there was never really anything overt. Different instances would smell of racism, but I never really had anything change my life as far as being attacked as a child. As we got older, being eighteen, nineteen years old and a recording artist at a young age, it was very hard to get us booked at a hotel in the South back then. A lot of times we’d have to drive five or six hours to Mobile, Alabama or Jackson, Mississippi, and even if you had a room at the hotel, you’d never feel welcome. A lot of times, we would do the show, and then jump back on the highway and come back home.
And even just traveling on the interstate, in the early to mid-’90s when drug trafficking got kind of heavy down the Interstate 10 corridor, they just pulled over any young black men. We’d be on our way to a show, and they’d pull us over, go through all our suitcases, all the equipment, and DJ cases, and have us on the side of the highway for two hours, dogs and everything.
What about dealing with Jive Records when you were first signed?
I wouldn’t necessarily blame any of that on our demographic. We were young, and we weren’t easy to deal with when we were younger. I think a lot of it had to do with age, not that we were black and from the South. It wasn’t their lack of faith in that we couldn’t make good music. They signed us because we could. It was that they didn’t know how to sell it to everyone else.
I had never had any racial issues with anyone at that label. Every race of people you could think of has worked at that label. The one problem we had there as far as race was concerned was that I wanted to call myself “Jive’s Favorite Schvartze,” which is the derogatory term for black people in the Jewish community. And they were very adamant about me not using that word. They did not want me to use that. But I found it odd that I could say “nigger” as much as I wanted to. I made a big of a stink about that. And I knew it was going to be a [problem].
Why do you think they didn’t want you to use that term? Because you were taking their negative terminology and flipping it on them?
I think so. The President of the company was Jewish, and I think they just didn’t want to touch that at the time. And this was around the time in the early ’90s of [Ice T’s band, Body Count’s controversial song,] “Cop Killer,” back when they were putting the “Parental Advisory” stickers on the albums, and no one had ever gone down that road. So they were just trying to avoid any kind of controversy.
Were you trying to be controversial?
I was curious. I wanted to see if they would let me use that terminology. I had a feeling that they wouldn’t let me use it, but that they would let me use “nigger” all day. I did it just to test the waters. I’ll be honest. I was like, “I bet you these white people won’t let me say this.” And they didn’t.
