Fly back in a time machine, back to the days before
Pimp C
passed and back when
UGK
were still a going concern, and the idea of
Bun B
having a successful, and even fruitful, solo career would be somewhere between odd and outlandish, even amongst the Houston hip-hop faithful. After all, the chemistry between the cold, hard
Bun
and the snaky, snide
Pimp
was just too good to ignore, but since the release of his first reluctant solo album -- 2005's
Trill
, recorded while the
was locked-up on gun charges --
has been banging out one solo surprise after another, this
Epilogue
being no different. The fourth, and according to
, final,
gets away with being a little more loose thanks to that "Epilogue" tag in its title, but once "The Best Is Back" kicks open the door with some bold, unfiltered putdowns ("My third leg long and your bitch is a lumberjack/You'd a killed that ho if you knew what I done to that"), the overall messiness of the album doesn't hurt nearly as much as the word "final." Schooling fools in that merciless
style, the
DJ Khalil
-produced and
Raekwon
-featuring "No Competition" provides a soulful right hook, while the stomping anthem "Stop Playin'," with
Royce Da 5'9"
and
Redman
, provides the left hook, and still, it's the ghost of the
that helps
supply the finishing move on the great "Don't Play with Me." Archival tapes of the
's verses are also woven into the slippery strip club number "Cake," where
Lil Boosie
Big K.R.I.T
. (the latter doing double duty as the track's producer) join the
crew in a funky, mutual drool over big booty; then there's the always amusing
Devin the Dude
, who proves a
-like foil on the snarky highlight "On One." The ambitious surprises come when modern dancehall star
Serani
joins
,
Rick Ross
, and
2 Chainz
on the reggae wonder dubbed "Fire," then there's the all-star posse cut "Legendary DJ Screw," a wonderful tribute to the Houston DJ who invented the syrupy sound of the screwed 'n' chopped remix. It could have stopped there as the simple "Bye!" hangs off the album like an OK extra, but fans can consider this the
they didn't see coming and be grateful this scattered dispatch generally lives up to the solo
's high standards. ~ David Jeffries