nels. Everybody’s playing his music now. I remember when they wouldn’t play [UGK records] and now they’re gonna do it when he’s dead? Why can’t we see [the success] while we’re alive? Pimp C had just called me right before he came to L.A. and I was asking him if he needed me to come pick him up from the airport. That’s the kind of relationship we got. “Dude, if you need me to come pick you up from the airport, I got you, homie.” And regardless, I’m still a fan. In the back of my head I’m like, “Damn, C is my homie?!?” Yeah, I am David Banner, but I’m still a fan of the music. So to have that kind of relationship and be able to call him – you know, Snoop and Pimp C really talked me through a lot of the bad shit I was going through. I remember when I really thought everything was over for me. I thought my career was done. Pimp C called me up and he was like, “Banner, you ain’t did nothing wrong. You made a few mistakes, but if you go back to doing the David Banner [music] that everybody loved, people will forgive you.” That’s how I got focused. Pimp C said, “Dawg, I know you wanna change music, but niggas don’t wanna hear that shit. Go back to the niggas that [loved] ‘Like A Pimp.’” He had just told me, “I want you and Three 6 Mafia and a couple other producers to really help me out on my album.” He wanted me to be a big part of his solo album. Pimp would call me and talk about politics. When I got into it with Al Sharpton, Pimp C was like, “Whatever you want me to do; if you want me to jump on the ‘So Special’ song, dawg, whatever you want to do on the political side, I’m here. I’m ready. Just call me. I got you, Banner.” You know? Pimp would call me and talk about his children. It was really crazy, but I would see Pimp C act ways around me that he wouldn’t act around nobody else except his family or Bun. The conversations we had were never really about rap; it was more about life and the shit he was going through. That’s really what I want people to see out of Pimp. He was “Pimp C,” that part was real, but there was a whole lot more to the man. It’s sort of like when ‘Pac died. ‘Pac had a whole ‘nother vision of what he wanted to do for black people. Honestly, Pimp had that too, but Pimp knew that he had to take care of his UGK fans, the people that always supported him for all his life before he branched out and did anything else. He had to make sure that the core UGK fans were happy, and [not doing] that was a mistake I made in my career and Pimp saw that. He’d tell me, “You gotta take care of your fans, the ones that were down with you before ‘Play’ and before the lights and the glamour. That’s the people you’ve gotta take care of. Once you know they’re good, then you can do some other shit.” That’s what I remember from Pimp C. The joking, the laughing, the warnings and the shit to watch out for in the music industry, the big brother that had a lot of respect for his lil’ brother. Pimp wasn’t afraid to show me that he respected me too. It was a mutual respect and kinsmanship.
DAVID BANNER Instead of a specific moment, I think my best memory was when me and Pimp C started forming a friendship. It was crazy for me to see the joking Pimp C, the laughing Pimp C; to get to know the political Pimp C. The voice of Pimp C changed my career. [The hook of my breakthrough single] “make them girls get down on the flo’,” you know, that was his voice. Pimp told me I was one of the few people that looked out for him and wrote to him while he was in jail. When he was in jail, I really didn’t know him like that. The reason I wrote him while he was in prison was because his voice changed my life. Well, the beat [to “Like A Pimp”] was jammin’ too; I gotta give myself some credit (laughs) but you know, that sample from his voice changed my career and changed my life. Most people are not blessed with the opportunity to become friends with a person that helped change your life. UGK and Pastor Troy were really strong influences on the way David Banner represents the South. When Pimp C said, “We don’t do Hip Hop music, we do country rap tunes,” and when Pastor Troy said he ain’t worried about the rest of the world because as long as he’s got GA, he’s cool; that kind of mentality really changed the way that I do music. I had always felt that way in my heart; but when Pimp C and Pastor Troy said it [it made sense]. And the reason I’m mentioning Pastor Troy is because I want to give him his props before he dies. Everybody wants to give praise and buy records and play songs and play videos [after an artist dies]. Pimp C is finally now getting what he deserves. He’s nominated for a Grammy. Everybody’s playing his videos on all the chan-
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Look at what happened to Kanye [with his mother dying]. I just lost my daddy and my grandma. Look at Spice 1. Look at all the shit that’s happening with Lil Wayne and T.I.’s [arrests]. We’re getting blatant signs every day that there’s something else we’re supposed to be doing with this time that we’ve got here on earth. Pimp C’s passing is a sign to me to keep my health up and keep myself out of bullshit and unnecessary drama. You just don’t know how long you’ve got. I just finished talking to Pimp C. And he [died] in L.A. He was close to me. We were in the same fuckin’ city. In my head I’m thinkin’, maybe if I had tried to get him close to me or somethin’, maybe that shit wouldn’t have gone down the way it went. You tell somebody, “Aight, we gonna get together as soon as I finish doing this,” well, you don’t know if you’ve got that time to call somebody back or get right with somebody. Pimp was a good dude. Pimp had a certain way of sayin’ shit, but you’ve gotta take the emotion out of it when you’re listening to Pimp C. The dude really had some shit to say. There was a bigger man there than what the world had the opportunity to see. I hope that people can dig just a little bit deeper and see what I saw. I want people to know that it was more than the jewelry and the mink coat. The nigga was smart. But he didn’t try to act like he was above nobody, he’d put it to your ass exactly the way he felt it. It was more than the pimpin’. It was so much bigger than pimpin’ and hoes. It was so much bigger than that, and that’s the tragedy to me. Just like ‘Pac. Our people get taken away from us before they’re able to blossom into what they actually are or what they have the capacity to become. // As told to Julia Beverly Photo by Marcus DeWayne