Po Pimp

Chicago's first national rap hit sold the pimp as a slow-rolling mood, and went gold in three months.

"Po Pimp," also listed as "Po Pimp (Do You Wanna Ride)," is the 1996 single by the West Side Chicago trio Do or Die, featuring a rapid-fire verse from Twista and a sung hook by Johnny P. Produced by The Legendary Traxster and released on 16 July 1996 through Rap-A-Lot Records with Noo Trybe/Virgin distribution ahead of the album Picture This, it peaked at number 22 on the Billboard Hot 100 that October, reached number one on the Hot Rap Singles chart, and was certified gold by the RIAA on 10 October 1996. Alongside Crucial Conflict's "Hay" the same summer, it is the record that, in the group's own words to XXL in 2015, "broke the mold in Chicago" and put the city's rap on national radio.

The song's pimp is a manner rather than a business. Over Traxster's slow, melodic track the verses describe cruising, spending and being chosen, with the "po pimp" of the title a self-mocking figure, the pimp without money who carries the style anyway. Do or Die told XXL their aim was to give "pros and cons" of the street rather than sell it, and that they had been recording since the late 1980s before the hit. No woman is named or given a voice; the women are the audience the song addresses.

Its afterlife is long: a 1997 Grammy nomination for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group circulates in discographies, the group revisited the title on later records, and the melodic, sung-hook template Traxster built became a Chicago signature.

ALSO KNOWN AS
Do or Die (AK, Belo Zero, N.A.R.D.); Twista (Carl Terrell Mitchell)

ERA
1996

ASSOCIATED WITH
West Side, Chicago; Rap-A-Lot Records; The Legendary Traxster; Johnny P; Twista

STANDING
Documented