Listen to Parquet Courts and Bun B Team Up on “Captive of the Sun”

Bun B is one of the most under-appreciated rappers of the past 25 years. In both his time in the endlessly influential UGK and as a solo artist, we don’t know if the “Trill OG” has found a beat that he can’t flow over. Bun had the nerve to pop up on the “Paper Planes (Remix)” and sneakily crushed it. He conquered the jagged landscape of Killer Mike’s “Big Beast.” He and Childish Gambino stunted to Kavinsky’s “Nightcall” from the Drive soundtrack. Maybe most importantly, he helped to fully solidify Drake’s Dirty South credentials by running down “Uptown” and “Put It Down.”

Today, another improbable pairing of his is out and it’s wonderful. The 12” between Bun B and Parquet Courts had been promised since last fall but it never really seemed possible. A nervy New York by way of Austin indie-rock band and the aforementioned Trill OG? How does it even work? It works because the band supplies a stoned-out backbeat and slow-as-molasses guitar lines for B to run circles around. In his all-too-brief verse, he mentions Tupac, cookie jars, tube socks and bending corners in his Escalade. “It’s gonna end up being a bomb or being the shit,” he summarizes near the end. It’s the latter. Definitely the latter.

You can order and stream the 12” via Rough Trade here now. Watch the lyric video for the track, animated by Marisa Gesualdi and featuring an illustration of Bun by Parquet Courts’ Andrew Savage, below. You can also find a Houston rap playlist made by the band’s Andrew Brown via Spotify here.