It’s that time of year again and the whole city of Houston is immersed in that rodeo life. For the third year in a row, The Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo has given our legendary MC Bun B his own stage to present some of the nation’s top hip hop talent and each year it keeps getting bigger. Matt Sonzala sat down to talk with the Trill OG himself about this year’s All American Take Over.
I’ve been with you in a variety of situations and before all kinds of shows, and I know you get a bit anxious when getting ready to go on stage. How did you feel the first time you were about to get on stage at NRG for the Houston Rodeo in front of 75,000 people?
I didn’t really know what to expect, I didn’t know how it was actually going to flesh itself out. Honestly, I wasn’t really fully aware of what I had agreed to. Because the rodeo is not like the House of Blues, it’s not like doing any of these typical concerts. I’ve done big shows before. I’ve performed on birthday bashes, I’ve performed on stage at Glastonbury, it’s just the dynamic in which this show is presented is different from anything else one might find themselves doing, and where it is, being from Houston, that whole dynamic, being the first Black man from Houston to headline, there’s so many different things individually that are mind blowing and career affirming. But you put all that shit together man, I had to be so outside myself in order to even really do this. Because if you stop and even really realize what you are going through in that moment, the shit can be very overwhelming.
I would assume it would have to be overwhelming. Even on a smaller stage. Coordinating all of those artists into one cohesive show like you did is no mean feat.
It was really just about that, understanding from a logistics standpoint of how to create that show. Most of the people that perform at the rodeo are already on tour, and the rodeo just ends up being another night. For them it’s actually easier because they don’t have to deal with the production, they just deal with the rodeo stage, so you save money that night almost. But for me we have to build it from the ground up. I had to go find the band, work with the band, and the band had to learn the music from all the people I kept inviting. The numbers kept growing and we had to get all those different artists to get some type of rehearsal time before the show. Chamillionaire, I don’t even know if he rehearsed because he didn’t get into town until the day of. So, it’s a lot coordinating that kind of talent, but we have an amazing team who work behind the scenes and everybody plays their own particular position and actually ends up making all of this happen.
That is no simple job at all. How intensive is the rehearsal process? Especially bringing artists from all around the country, that can’t be easy.
Naw, naw we have to map these things out carefully. Sometimes it’s not even about… for example, we had Erykah Badu last year, and we knew that Erykah Badu was not going to be available to us until show time. We knew that the show runs one hour, from 9pm to 10pm. At the rodeo you only get a one hour set so we knew she wasn’t gonna arrive until maybe 9:15 or so on show day. So for her music we had the band rehearse it and then we recorded it and sent it to her. We put her in communication with the band leader so she was aware of what the band was available to do, how seasoned they were, and if they could take in-the-moment cues from her. They assured her they could and on the day of they did. For the Houston edition we did three days of it where we had a few guys in each session and focused on their parts. With Tobe Nwigwe we didn’t even have to have them rehearse because Tobe and his crew are very seasoned, they rehearse extensively. When they came in and did their soundcheck it was the perfect soundcheck, they knew exactly what they were going to do. And the stage was a lot more fitting for what Tobe, Fat, and The Angel’s actually do in terms of presentation. But still trying to get artists like Yungstar, Big Mike and everyone on the same page at the same time…it’s not an easy thing to do. I’ll be honest though; everyone made the time they needed to make for this and everyone kept it professional.
We had a funny incident where we were at a rehearsal and Yungstar came in and did his rehearsal and he was like, really lackadaisical and he wasn’t giving any real energy. I told Truck (Bun’s head of security), because Truck was the conduit to Yungstar, I told him “Hey man, that shit that Yungstar doing, if he come like that again at dress rehearsal I’m pulling him from the show. We can’t afford to have him not take this seriously.” So he came to dress rehearsal the next day on site and he comes to me and he’s like “OG that was just practice, I didn’t know I had to do it all at practice, I’ma know what to do on the show, I just thought we was just checking in with the band.” And I was like “Oh well I thought you was just not taking it seriously.” And Yungstar said, “Naw this is the biggest moment of my life!” So, I can understand an artist not wanting to give his all at sound check, but I wanted to make sure he knew what was expected of him. He absolutely did and gave a great performance on show night.
Well, this was definitely another level of the game for everyone you brought on the show for both the Houston edition and the South edition. But this year you are going all over the country with lots of different artists, who may have done some big things, but this is huge. I always say what I like best about Houston is how Houston supports Houston, and I don’t see something on this scale happening anywhere else with artists like yourself and who you are putting on. How important is it to you to really hit all the sections of America with the All-American Take Over?
It’s important! We’ve got West Coast representation, we’ve got East Coast representation, we’ve got the Dirty South and we’ve got the Midwest. For me it was important to not just do East, West and South, we had to pull someone from the Midwest. We tried to touch people who made great music from places who literally touched the world. I’m so glad we got Nelly for this All-American Take Over. You know Nelly was the first call for this year because I think he checks all the boxes for what we are doing and what we represent. And he’s the homey, so I’m glad that he is able to come. By getting him booked first and announcing him it really set the tone of expectation for what I’m trying to do. I wanted people to know that I was really trying to bring it all this time. This is my third time Matt, and I don’t know if I’m coming back. I didn’t know if I was coming back the second time, but once we did the second time I kind of had a feeling that we were gonna do the third time…but I don’t know if we’re gonna do any more after that. And even if I do more after this, I don’t know how much I would want to rap. I could maybe do a Dick Clark thing and make it a Bun B Presents type show. But if this is the last one, I’m going out with a bang.
It’s exciting, the line up is really strong so far and we are all looking forward to seeing how it all goes down. This means a lot to all of us. I was wondering though; did you ever attend the rodeo as a youth?
I did, this is a story we talk a lot about internally, but the rodeo was actually my first concert. When I was about three years old, my mom was hit from behind in a car wreck. This was in the 70’s, she was a single black woman at the time, and a white man hit her in a pretty expensive kind of car. She was pretty concerned, as the police were coming and all of that. But he actually took responsibility for hitting her and to make amends he asked her if she wanted to go to the rodeo and he would give her tickets. She didn’t think much of it, but one day she checked the mail and she’s got tickets to go to the rodeo. So that’s the first concert I ever went to. It was the night that Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn co-headlined at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
And you remember it?
I remember that that was my first show. I remember that I went to see Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn at the rodeo. I can’t say I remember the music, but I remember the setting and I remember the artists. My mom was like, “There is no way that you are supposed to remember that!” There’s no pictures from that night, we didn’t have any pictures in the house from that, tickets aren’t in some kind of photo album, and we never talked about it really. In fact, my mom just told me the backstory last year as to how we even went to the rodeo that year. I don’t remember it totally, but I remember that it happened.
Did “Tell Me Something Good” era Bun B ever think that this would be possible?
Ah naw. “Tell Me Something Good” Bun B didn’t even know if he would be welcome attending the rodeo. This wasn’t something that I even did as an adult until Queen and I had a family and we took the kids, and now we take the grand kids and all that. But no there was no aspiring to that. Houstonians weren’t necessarily playing it unless they were they were country artists. It wasn’t even a place to aspire to perform at as a rap artist from Houston. And now there are people waking up in 2024 in Houston falling in love with hip hop and this could be a realistic goal for them. When we did the first one Lay Lay was kind of off to herself during dress rehearsal and we were like “Is everything ok?” She was like “I’m just manifesting that the next time I come to do this that it’s my show and I can bring people to do this show.” You know what I’m saying? That’s what young people of color can aspire to now. And it’s not just Black people because I’ve been able to bring Baby Bash, Frankie J, this year I’m bringing That Mexican OT, so it’s not just Black kids that can see themselves on stage now. I’m just glad to have a platform that is able to showcase so many aspects of hip hop.
