Featured in Vinyl Me, Please's book, 100 Albums You Need in Your Collection, UGK's Ridin' Dirty is a stone cold classic of the rap form. There’s something epic about Ridin’ Dirty. And not in the stupid internet nerd “this is a big deal therefore it is EPIC” sense of the word, like Ridin’ Dirty is an epic in the same way that The Odyssey is epic, the same way that Ben Hur is epic, the same way that Lord Of The Rings is epic, the same way that any other actually epic shit is actually epic. Between Pimp C’s gorgeous, country-rap productions, his and Bun B’s literary verses, and Smoke D’s touching interludes straight from the pen, Ridin’ Dirty creates a world, introduces you to Bun B and Pimp C as personalities, and then runs them through the ringer of the Southern experience. There are bluesy lamentations (“One Day,” “Diamonds & Wood,” “Hi Life”), tough talk (“Murder,” “Touched,” “That’s Why I Carry”), slice-of-life narratives (“3 In The Mornin’,” “Good Stuff”), and “Fuck My Car,” which is just its own amazing entity that uses car-fucking as a metaphor (no cars were actually fucked in the making of Ridin’ Dirty). UGK were a product of the insanely fruitful Texas rap scene, which gave us guys like the Geto Boys, Swishahouse, Devin The Dude, and A.B.N., not to mention the legendary DJ Screw—whose work as a selector, DJ, and leader of the Screwed Up Click slowed down and redefined the sound of hip-hop.