“As in ‘third time is the charm,’” Bubba Sparxxx explains the significance of the title of his newest album THE CHARM, due on fellow southern rapper Big Boi’s new imprint with Virgin Records, Purple Ribbon Records.
But also as in “platinum plaque,” a “charm” the deserving southern-bred MC has yet to take home after his first two critically-acclaimed albums on Timbaland’s Beat Club Records (Interscope).
Born Warren Anderson Mathis in the small mill town of LaGrange, Georgia, Bubba Sparxxx burst onto the scene in 2001 wearing overalls and driving a tractor in the video for “Ugly,” the Timbaland-produced frenetic hit single from Bubba’s gold-selling debut Dark Days, Bright Nights.
“It really hurt me when people took that video as a total goof though,” says Bubba about the crossover hit. “I was like, wait a minute you think that where I come from is just all hee-hawed out and that’s it’s just a big joke. What I’m going to do on this second album is to delve so deep into this shit that I’m gonna make you understand exactly what it is that I come from and where it is that I come from. By the time this album is over you’re gonna know that my life is not a fucking joke!”
Bubba’s sophomore album, Deliverance, was just that: a highly introspective look at life in rural America that cut to the heart of who Bubba Sparxxx is. Produced by Timbaland, the album married country and hip-hop perfectly, with pounding beats and heavy bass supporting fiddles, harmonicas, and plenty of twang. Critics in and out of hip-hop lauded the album as a major milestone in hip-hop, calling it everything from daring to ingenious, and crowning Bubba as one of the South’s greatest lyricists.
But while the LP scored big with hip-hop’s cultural elite, it failed to reach its full commercial potential due to turmoil at Interscope that prevented the label from fully marketing the album. To add insult to injury, shortly after the release of the album, Beat Club and Timbaland’s relationship with Interscope dissolved and suddenly Bubba was without a label.
Enter fellow well-respected southern MC, OutKast’s Big Boi, and his brand new label, Purple Ribbon Records (distributed through Virgin Records).
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