Legendary rap group UGK will reportedly have one less member as media outlets and blogs got the internet on fire with the news of Pimp C’s passing (Wikipedia already updated) in a Hollywood hotel. This news will send a monstrous ripple throughout the hip-hop community and abroad that will collectively sound like a wave of “You BSing!” or “WHAT? Stop It!” Pimp C, Chad Butler, recently had hip-hop all ears with now his infamous comments on rappers and drug dealers embellishing their exploits, his views on Atlanta, and Russell Simmons supposed down-low status. Not one for mencing words. However, what will be billed as his true legacy will be Pimp C’s discography (which stretches from the mid-80’s to the present) that inspired many rappers of past, present, and future.

TMZ reporting:

Pimp C, real name Chad Butler — and one half of the rap duo UGK, was found dead in a hotel room this morning. He was 33.

L.A. County Fire responded to a 911 call at the Mondrian Hotel, located on trendy Sunset Strip in Hollywood. They arrived to his sixth floor hotel room to find him dead in bed.

UGK is best known for appearing on the Jay-Z track “Big Pimpin’” in 2000, and more recently with Outkast on the song “International Player’s Anthem (I Choose You).” Pimp C had just performed with fellow rapper Too Short at the “House of Blues” in L.A. on Saturday night. — [ Source ]

Update: Jive Records Releases Statement:

It is with great sadness that Jive Records announces the passing of Chad “Pimp C” Butler, a member of the celebrated rap duo UGK (Underground Kingz). Jive Records’ President and CEO Barry Weiss states: “We mourn the unexpected loss of Chad. He was truly a thoughtful and kind-hearted person. He will be remembered for his talent and profound influence as a pioneer in bringing southern rap to the forefront. He will be missed and our prayers remain with his family and Bun B. I’ve known Chad since he was 18, and we loved him dearly and he was a cherished member of the Jive family.”

Born in Port Arthur, Texas, Butler’s father was a trumpet player who played professionally with Solomon Burke. Outside of his father, the 33-year old rapper’s influences varied, ranging from Bobby Bland, Jimmy McGriff, the 1960’s Motown artists to Run DMC. Butler met his inseparable partner Bernard “Bun B” Freeman in high school where they formed UGK. In 1992, the duo signed to Jive Records and went on release a total of eight albums for the label. They earned their highest achievement earlier this year when their most recent album, UGK (Underground Kingz), debuted in the number one position on the album pop chart. According to the New York Times, UGK “helped inspire a generation of Southern hip-hop stars, from OutKast to Lil Wayne.”

Bun B is not available for comment at this time.

It’s a terrible thing for 33 people to be shot up in one day. Hell it’s said even if one person died. What can one say? I’ve been out to Virginia Tech a few times (we call it just “Tech” around here). And Blacksburg is literally the entire college. Like you’ve most likely have heard by now there are many ways to get on campus. Many! And that’s how it is at most colleges. That’s how it is in most neighborhoods. Campus police aren’t more adept to handling situations with gunmen more than office buildings are. This is what amazes me about the business that is college. After one person was killed already, the administration decides to just go on with the rest of the day and not cancel classes! “Oh he’s gone, we’ll be okay!” They thought it was a smart idea to wait 2 hours to tell the student body and alert them by e-mail? The Administration and the police are at fault. If they had shut down classes for the day, the rest of the dead wouldn’t be dead at all. This really shouldn’t surprise me. I’m thinking all of the media wouldn’t be there if only one person died.

I went to college in Richmond. VCU in fact. It’s listed as the biggest college in Virginia. VCU is a sprawling walmart type of college with two campuses (academic or west or Monroe now and medical or east or MCV now) that are stuck in the middle of downtown Rich City. There are VCU cops, State cops, Capitol cops, and Richmond cops all in that small area. When you enter your freshmen year, the administration tells you about not walking Monroe park at night. Monroe park is in between some dorms. The rapes behind the Landmark Theater (which sits adjacent to the dorms). The shifty individuals that walk around on West Grace street (there are even dorms there). The contstant traffic inundated throughout the campuses. The lax public accesibility to every campus door sans dorms. And the places where there are or could possibly be a large concentration of individuals, there’s no security. Dorm security were your peers in red sweaters with walkie talkies and Napoleon complexes. But outside of that you did see cops on bikes. But not patrolling inside of buildings. So you basically have to be mentally and possibly physically prepared to throwdown for you life at any given time throughout your college career. But you weren’t allowed to carry your own weapons. I’ve never felt safe at that school. But I knew I could handle my own.

The reason why I say all of this is to deal with the reality that we live in a world where you can get got wherever. And all of my peers and readers who grew up in the hood, know this. And even though we read/watch the world news where it usually starts as…
“good evening, insurgents mounted an attack and with an IED killed 61 iraqis and injuring hundreds. BUT 4 SOLDIERS WERE INJURED…” or especially what’s going on darfur right now. It’s a different world on the other side of the pond. They’ve been dying each day for education.

From CBSNews.com:

(AP) Don Knotts, who won TV immortality and five Emmys for playing the bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on “The Andy Griffith Show” with self-depreciating humor, was remembered by his friend and co-star as a comedic genius who wrote some of the show’s best scene.

“Don was a small man … but everything else about him was large: his mind, his expressions,” Griffith told The Associated Press on Saturday. “Don was special. There’s nobody like him.”

Knotts, 81, died Friday of pulmonary and respiratory complications at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center, said Sherwin Bash, his friend and manager.

His half-century career included more than 25 films and seven TV series, most notably playing the bug-eyed deputy who carried in his shirt pocket the one bullet he was allowed after shooting himself in the foot. The constant fumbling, a recurring sight gag, was typical of his self-deprecating humor.

The show ran from 1960-68, and was in the top 10 of the Nielsen ratings each season, including a No. 1 ranking its final year. It is one of only three series in TV history to bow out at the top: The others are “I Love Lucy” and “Seinfeld.” The 249 episodes have appeared frequently in reruns and spawned a large, active network of fan clubs.

Knotts, whose shy, soft-spoken manner was unlike his high-strung characters, once said he was most proud of the Fife character and didn’t mind being remembered that way.

He also played the would-be swinger landlord Ralph Furley on “Three’s Company,” which he joined in 1979, and was an original cast member of “The Steve Allen Show,” the comedy-variety show that ran from 1956-61.

Knotts’ G-rated films were family fun, not box-office blockbusters. In most, he ends up the hero and gets the girl _ a girl who can see through his nervousness to the heart of gold.

In the part-animated 1964 film “The Incredible Mr. Limpet,” Knotts played a meek clerk who turns into a fish after he is rejected by the Navy.

In 1998, he had a key role in the back-to-the-past movie “Pleasantville,” playing a folksy television repairman whose supercharged remote control sends a teen boy and his sister into a TV sitcom past.

The West Virginia native began his show biz career even before he graduated from high school, performing as a ventriloquist at local clubs and churches. He majored in speech at West Virginia University, then took off for the big city.

“I went to New York cold. On a $100 bill. Bummed a ride,” he recalled in a visit to his hometown of Morgantown, where city officials renamed a street for him in 1998.

Within six months, Knotts had taken a job on a radio Western called “Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders,” playing a wisecracking, know-it-all handyman. He stayed with it for five years before making his series TV debut on “The Steve Allen Show.”

He married Kay Metz in 1948, the year he graduated from college. The couple had two children before divorcing in 1969. Knotts later married, then divorced Lara Lee Szuchna.

Knotts is survived by his wife of three years, Francey Yarborough, and two children, Karen and Thomas, from his first marriage.

You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine — Lou Rawls
Damn it’s really sad that Lou died. He died of lung and brain cancer. I’m gonna have to spin some Rawls cd’s tonight. Forty million albums sold! His passing, another lesson of why YOU should quit smoking. And this was the message that was left on his website when I just checked it out today.

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