On this episode of the STL Bucket List Show, we sit down with Bubba Sparxxx, the Georgia-born artist behind two of the 2000s' biggest crossover hits — "Ugly" and "Miss New Booty" — ahead of his stop in St. Louis for the Tacos and Tequila festival.
Bubba talks about growing up on a dirt road in rural Georgia with, in his words, more natural ability than industry preparation, and walks through the different eras of his career — the cultural weight of "Ugly" during the TRL and 106 & Park years, and the sheer commercial size of "Miss New Booty," made with Mr. Collipark and the Ying Yang Twins and named for a line from the movie The Players Club before it took on a life — and a literal meaning — of its own. He traces his sound, which he calls "country hip hop" (or, more accurately in his telling, "hip hop country," since hip hop comes first), back to growing up idolizing Outkast and the Dungeon Family and being signed to Big Boi. He's candid about a long struggle with addiction and alcoholism that he says started as an internal condition long before his first drink, what it took to get sober in an industry that still encourages drinking and partying, and how the drug landscape facing young artists today — fentanyl, gas station opiates, nitrous — is a different, harder world than the one he came up in. These days he splits his life between the foot of the Rockies in Utah, where he doesn't record at all, and Atlanta, where recording is treated like a work trip; on the music side, he's releasing new singles like "Pop It" featuring Bun B ahead of Impolite Gentleman 2, and playing a stacked St. Louis lineup at Tacos and Tequila alongside Rick Ross, Paul Wall, Young Joc and Murphy Lee.
It's a conversation about longevity, honesty, and staying rooted in exactly where you're from — even when the whole industry is telling you to be someone else.
They discuss:
- Growing up on a farm in Georgia and the different cultural weight of "Ugly" versus the sheer size of "Miss New Booty"
- Coining "country hip hop" (really hip hop country) and the Outkast/Dungeon Family roots behind it
- An unusually candid look at addiction, sobriety, and how the music industry treats partying
- Splitting time between Utah and Atlanta, and treating recording like a "work trip"
- New music with Bun B and Paul Wall, and playing St. Louis's Tacos and Tequila festival
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📍 Recorded at Bucket List Podcast Studio, St. Louis, MO
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