Pimp C and Bun B had traveled to Chicago to record their follow-up to 1994s classic Super Tight. Jive was putting more money behind the duo; it was a calculated investment, as not only had UGK themselves built up a strong following, southern rap had exploded in the two years between 1994 and 1996. But those Chicago sessions didn't deliver anything that impressed anyone--not the group themselves, and not Mama Wes, Pimp C's mother and manager. All the failed Chicago recordings proved was that the group needed to be in their element; UGK recorded best in a UGK atmosphere. So things were resumed in Texas, and a new personality was added to the mix to help reinvigorate the sessions.

"I was working on my compilation album," N.O. Joe explained to Passion Weiss in 2015. "We [Bun B and Joe] were just shooting ideas back and forth. Once we developed a good relationship, Bun was like “man, Pimp C wants to work with you, but he doesn’t know kind of how to ask you.” He’d never brought anybody else in [to work on UGK records] and I told Bun 'what!? Man, dude! I’d love to work on a UGK record, bro.'"

"So Pimp C and I got together. We talked about music and we gelled real well together and worked out everything. Pimp C was like 'you know, we don’t have the big budget to pay you.' I was like 'I’m not worrying about that man. I love the music more.' That’s when we hooked up and did the Ridin’ Dirty album."

From the infectious menace of Bun B’s flow as he raps “For what it’s worth, it’s the birth of some niggas doin’ dirt” on the bobbing “Murder,” to the gleeful misogyny of the quintessentially Pimp C “Pinky Ring,” the duo’s chemistry and creativity continued to peak on Ridin' Dirty. This is street testimony from two of the best to ever do it, and it's not ever pretty; but it's plenty compelling. And UGK make it sound like you've never heard anyone address the dope game, scandalous sycophants or murderous paranoia as effectively as Pimp and Bun do here.

"I don’t think a lot of people even know this, but Ridin’ Dirty is one of the first rap albums ever recorded on ProTools," Bun B told Complex in 2016. "At the time, ProTools was really only used for commercials and things like that. I was against it at the time because they were trying to push upon me the ability to punch in. And I had just written 'Murder.' That was about to be my greatest lyrical example, my greatest performance on record. And I was like 'I don’t give a fuck if you have the ability to punch in and shit, I’m gonna do this with breath control, not eight bars and punch in.'”

Those sessions in UGK's home state yielded Ridin’ Dirty. Being back in the Texas setting and the infusion of N.O. Joe's polish and creativity proved to be a perfect catalyst; as Bun and Pimp pushed each other to a place UGK hadn't been prior to 1996. The result of that spark would be one of the most successfully-realized and musically inspired rap albums of the 1990s.

Ridin' Dirty's sonics and atmosphere are as effective as they are layered; this is a sound that is quintessentially southern. While the album's deft samples range from Wes Montgomery to the Isley Bros, the resulting vibe of Ridin' Dirty evokes a muggy richness that recalls Muscle Shoals and Hi Records as effortlessly as it connects to Suave House and the Dungeon Family; it's almost a cross-section for all black music that emerged out of the American South in the past 50 years. Most of the tracks are as syrupy and warm as classic Staples Singers or O.V. Wright, interrupted by bursts of hip-hop aggression to remind you that this is rap music, this is 1996 and you better act like you know. This is music for folks who love Isaac Hayes and for folks who love Poison Clan.

Smoke D’s interludes add a conceptualism to the album. The excerpts were actual phone recordings from the rapper’s stay in a state penitentiary in Mississippi. Pimp C extracted bits from these phone conversations and featured them throughout the album--adding a thematic framework to Ridin’ Dirty’s realness. Twenty years later, and with more than 850,000 albums sold, the album's successes are obvious and it's legacy is cemented.

The laid-back feel of the album was the result of obvious influences; specifically, a growing syrup-sipping scene and an influx of weed from British Columbia into Houston. "We just tried to implement everything that was really happening in the music," Bun said. "Talking about the whole explosion of BC weed coming into Houston at the time and being an artist and trying to make music, but still hustling on the side and being on the grind. You know this was when syrup was still very early. My people used to laugh at me and say I was crazy for sipping syrup, and now I don’t sip syrup and everybody else does."

Those circumstances inform the sound and the subject matter from front to back of UGK's third album. That spirit reaches it's apogee on “Diamonds & Wood;” one of the greatest southern rap anthems ever produced; a perfect mélange of slow-rolling soul, real-ass rhymes and a mood that feels like a lazy Sunday afternoon, smokin' something on a back porch or riding slow around the neighborhood with the system loud. A perfect sample of Bootsy Collins’ “Munchies For Your Love” provides the backdrop for Pimp and Bun to lay down some truth. “Say man, I stopped smokin' with them haters back in 94,” Pimp famously raps. “But niggas be thinkin' that a Sweet gone get 'em through my door/And niggas talk a lot of shit in a safe place/I know, cuz he can't look me eye-to-eye when he in my face.”

Almost a decade after Pimp C's untimely death at the age of 33, love for UGK has only risen. 2 Chainz, Boosie, Big K.R.I.T. and even Drake are all connected to the Underground Kingz untenable legacy; they are a linchpin in contemporary hip-hop and loom large as an influence on the attitude and presentation of 2000s southern hip-hop, specifically. Bun B is one of rap's most respected elder statesmen and a cultural commentator and lecturer; Pimp C is one of the game's most lionized legends--a sage of street politics and unfiltered Down South authenticity. UGK's Ridin' Dirty stands as a watershed moment in the career of one of the game's greatest acts. It sounds as good today as it ever has. UGK may be gone but they ain't ever leavin.' Country rap songs forever.

Ridin' Dirty didn't feature radio singles or videos--this was as unadorned a major rap release as the Port Arthur, TX duo's earlier albums. 1996 was a year when Hip-Hop was crossing over to pop and R&B audiences bigger than ever; and UGK's third album arrived in stores that summer with little fanfare. The mainstream didn't matter: Down South, the streets had known UGK for years. And even with Pimp and Bun's well-established reputations, Ridin' Dirty was clearly a new level for the Kingz. It would eventually become UGK's best-selling album, and an oft-cited benchmark for classic Dirty South Hip-Hop.