As half of the famed Southern hip-hop duo UGK, Bun B is a writerly craftsman with a gift for assonance, internal rhymes and evocative imagery. His line about "living real smooth like aloe vera lotion" on their funky street tale "Pocket Full of Stones" remains a signature, and while his group was unknown nationally at the time, his instruction to listeners to "step up yo' vocab" on Jay Z's dance-floor exotica "Big Pimpin'" became iconic. As a solo artist, Bun dug deeper, with "The Story" narrating his long rise from the Texas underground to a place in hip-hop's pantheon.