UGK

While appearances on a Beyoncé remix (the sweet but slammin' "Check On It") and one of Jay-Z's biggest singles (the snake-charming "Big Pimpin'") certainly raised UGK's mainstream profile, the duo's had a sizable gangsta-rap following ever since their 1992 debut, Too Hard to Swallow. A lean, acid-tongued listen from start to finish, it balanced spare, steamy beats and game-glorifying street stories ("Use Me Up," "Pocket Full of Stones") with ingenious touches like an Isley Brothers sample ("Between the Sheets," as heard weaving through the X-rated rhymes of "Cramping My Style") that Notorious B.I.G. used for "Big Poppa" a couple years later. Still wondering how ahead of the game UGK was for more than a decade? Our Next Steps have the answer.

Aside from being one of the defining Southern rap singles of the early '00s (the screwed & chopped sound can be heard coursing through its slo-mo beats and buzzing synths), "Sippin' On Some Syrup" foreshadowed the accidental drug overdose of UGK rapper Pimp C. (He was found dead in a Hollywood hotel room after consuming one too many Codeine-laced cocktails in late 2007.) As tragic as his tale is, C's death served as a reminder of the dense catalog he left behind, including the watery, Hitchcock-ian hooks of "Pourin' Up," the gangsta-approved piano-and-strings duet "Underground," and the ghostly soul samples of "One Day," a play-by-play of what it's like having to push drugs at 14. Oh, by the way — UGK stands for Underground Kingz, a claim sealed by our Deep Cuts.

Talib Kweli's appearance on the Motown-cribbing "Real Women" shows just how close UGK came to closing the gap between the hungry-as-hell underground and a money-flashing mainstream. The duo towed that line for more than a decade, especially on their latter-day solo albums, from Pimp C's guest-heavy Pimpalation (the distorted drums and pitch-shifting samples of "Havin' Thangs '06," the eerie, Parliament-like melodies of "Bobby & Whitney") to Bun B's club-conquering Trill album, a wild 'bow-throwing mix of abrasive G-funk ("Git It") and laser-guided synths ("Draped Up," "Trill Recognize Trill").

Coming straight outta Texas around the same time as Snoop Dogg and Dre's West Coast takeover, a wholly unique UGK hit the ground running with the minimal production techniques and unflinching rhymes of Too Hard to Swallow. While it wasn't as big of a crossover smash as The Chronic, it's now regarded as a certified gangsta rap classic along with much of the duo's dense discography. Fact is, many critics and hip-hop fans thought 2007 would be UGK's year to reach an audience on par with their peers Three 6 Mafia, thanks to a triumphant self-titled album and the strange but satisfying OutKast-assisted single "Int'l Players Anthem." That never quite happened due to the drug overdose of Pimp C in December of the same year, but that doesn't change the raw power of their records — some of the smartest, most influential hardcore rap you'll ever hear.