It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp

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"It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" is an Academy-award winning 2005 song written for the film Hustle & Flow by Memphis hip hop musicians Paul Beauregard and Jordan Houston (both from rap group Three 6 Mafia), and Cedric Coleman. 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 on March 5, 2006, Beauregarde, Houston, Coleman, and Henson performed the song shortly before it won the Academy Award for Best Song. 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 song's chorus. Three 6 Mafia made history as they became the first African-American hip-hop group to win an Academy Award for Best Song and also became the first hip-hop artists to ever 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, won in 2002. Eminem was absent from the 2002 ceremony and the song was not featured as a live performance.

This song became the third in five 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).