What is so often removed from the origin story of Three 6 Mafia is the political reality of Memphis, Tennessee, a Bible Belt city with a high murder rate that was still shrouded in unspoken Jim Crow policing during the war on drugs.
There was no space for luxury in a Black city trying to stay above water. While much of Southern hip-hop was invested in playing up Southern excess, rappers and DJs in Memphis were most concerned about staying alive and, if you’re lucky, getting the man next to you before he killed you himself. DJ Spanish Fly, Skinny Pimp, 8Ball & MJG and DJ Squeeky were all active members of the Memphis club and radio scene that built a mixtape network of blues sampling that birthed the horrorcore sound, visual aesthetic and thematic core that we understand today. Locally, on the ground, many date the origins of horrorcore all the way back to the mid-’80s during the war on drugs in Memphis. Based on the use of distorted synths, warped samples and high-pitched triplet-laced verses, horrorcore was unheard of outside of Memphis, but the visionary minds of Juicy J and DJ Paul were determined to have their music reach past I-40. Lord Infamous, Juicy J and DJ Paul helped build the body of what we know as horrorcore, a subgenre of aesthetic, lyrical and thematic foundations that reverberates to this very day.
#THREE 6 MAFIA WHEN THE SMOKE CLEARS SERIAL#
While the truest origins of the group morphs based on what starting point you look at, the group officially formed in 1991 after the local fame of “Da Serial Killaz,” a 16-part mixtape series that led to additional members joining and official distribution deals from any country or blues label that would take them at the time. Three 6 Mafia, beginning as a trio of just DJ Paul, Juicy J and Paul’s brother Lord Infamous, launched a legacy of hip-hop culture shift that scared the public and made the world take a second look at the kids of the underbelly.Īt their height, Three 6 Mafia put out nine studio albums containing the genius of DJ Paul, Juicy J, Gangsta Boo, Koopsta Knicca, Crunchy Black and Lord Infamous. When the children of the undead - in this case, poor Black kids born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee - started mixing soul samples into the horrorcore sonics about surviving poverty, drug culture and making plain the reality of living in the Bluff City, they changed hip-hop forever. What do you do when you are the underdog’s underdog? When you are the last counted and forever erased in a legacy of Black social music that carries your DNA? What do you call yourself in a world that has shown you nothing but strife, gut-wrenching joy and sullen grief that sits on top of your skin? You call yourself the Children of Satan and embrace what the world already sees you as, the undead. Three 6 Mafia When the Smoke Clears: Sixty 6, Sixty 1
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