Pitchfork

At this point in an impressive career, Bun B can probably rhyme gangster clichés in his sleep. As one half of Houston-based rap duo UGK alongside the late Pimp C, he probably helped come up with a lot of them, anyway. According to Nah Right, "That's Gangsta" is the lead single from Bun's forthcoming solo album, the follow-up to 2005's Trill, and the first thing we've heard from the rapper under his own name since Pimp's passing doesn't betray any signs of vulnerability. In fact, you could almost accuse Bun of resting on his laurels, with verses that could easily have shown up on some of his other recent tracks, such as Dizzee Rascal's fake-MC dissing "Where's Da G's". "Tell all of them fake gangsters, I'm coming to bring gangsta back," Bun explains here. Like sexy, I didn't know it was missing.

Even if Bun B's verses don't quite touch his pimps, hos, and ABCs wordplay on UGK's phenomenal swan song, "Int'l Player's Anthem (I Choose You)", or his threatening, Orville Redenbacher-poppin' verses on another excellent Underground Kingz single, "The Game Belongs to Me", "That's Gangsta" at least has beats to match his confident, deep-voiced belligerence. South Africa-born producer J.R. Rotem throws the hook to his own favorite Jamaican-accented singer and rapper, Sean Kingston. In contrast to Kingston's Rotem-produced "Beautiful Girls", which interpolates elements of Ben E. King oldie "Stand By Me", "That's Gangsta" is as dark and murderous as Bun requires, with distorted, guitar-like synths driving the vocal melody between pathos-laden bells and keys, theremin-like alien noises, and heavy, rolling beats. "You ain't a gangsta, you's a ho," he says at one point, putting the "you ain't a pimp, you's a fairy" moment of "Int'l Player's Anthem" into Ludacris' equally un-PC language. So to recap: Bun B is gangsta. (via XXL)

Stream:> Bun B [ft. Sean Kingston]: "That's Gangsta"
[from II Trill; due 04/01/08 on Rap-A-Lot/Asylum/Warner]