It's Hard out Here for a Pimp

Infobox Song
Name = It's Hard out Here for a Pimp
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Artist = Three 6 Mafia
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Album = Hustle & Flow soundtrack
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Released = 2005
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Genre = Hip hop, crunk
Length = 2:53
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Label = Atlantic
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"It's Hard out Here for a Pimp" is a song written by hip hop band Three 6 Mafia and Cedric Coleman for the 8 track "Hustle & Flow". It was performed in the film by stars Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson. Three 6 Mafia included their own version of the song with vocalist Paula Campbell on a 2006 special edition reissue of their platinum album "Most Known Unknown".

At the 78th Annual Academy Awards, Beauregard, Houston, Coleman, and Henson performed the song shortly before it won the Best Original Song. [Popkin, Helen A.S. (March 5 2006). [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11593167/ 'It’s Hard Out Here' for a good Oscar song] . MSNBC. Accessed April 12 2008.] Howard did not wish to perform at the ceremony, and since two of the song's writers are in the Three 6 Mafia, they were given the opportunity to perform it. In the live performance, the word "bitches" was replaced by "witches" in the chorus. Three 6 Mafia became the first hip hop group to win an Academy Award for Best Original Song and the first hip hop artists to perform at the ceremony. However, it was the second hip hop song to win an Oscar, after Eminem's "Lose Yourself", from the film "8 Mile" (2002).

This song became the third in six years to win the Oscar without a Golden Globe nomination. The others were "If I Didn't Have You" from "Monsters, Inc." (2001) and "Al Otro Lado del Río" from "The Motorcycle Diaries" (2004). The following years, "I Need to Wake Up" from "An Inconvenient Truth" and "Falling Slowly" from "Once" have both won from Original Song at the Oscars, but were also not nominated for a Golden Globe.

It's ranked #80 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs.

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