"He did this with no drum machine or nothing, just using a mixer and looping on cassette tape," Paul continues. The do-it-all-yourself approach that Spanish Fly had to creating music was not lost on DJ Paul. He would loop these rap instrumentals and throw a soul loop on top of something and rap over it." DJ's weren't rappers back then, they were guys who played rap songs that rappers made. Mostly, what attracted me to him more than everyone else was that he was a DJ who was rapping. "He was making the Gangsta Walk music," Paul says about what drew him to Spanish Fly. "He had a song called 'Gettin Away with the Medicine' talking about getting away with selling drugs and things like that. DJ Paul's biggest influence was undoubtedly DJ Spanish Fly, who, without being aware of it, was laying the blueprint for DJs who would also rap as well. In the early stages of hip-hop in Memphis, there were only a handful of DJs making noise in the city. It was drug music and now it's drug time in our society." Drugs is the most popular thing in the world right now, with marijuana and things being legal. "That's what it was made for, and that's what the kids are doing now. "Snap crackle pop rap was one thing, but this is hardcore, get high to it, get crunk and have fun in the club music," he says. This is the fun stuff.'"Īnd while the music is fun, DJ Paul understands that there's a drug element that has a presence in the music as well. They're going back to it like, 'Holy crap. Now, they're in their late teens and early twenties and starting to hear about the aggressive rap that we did. "These young kids grew up with the more laid-back friendly rap that was going on in the mid-to-late 2000s. "We sold millions of records on our own, and now, the young kids done got ahold to it, and it's brand new to them," Paul says. Two of their albums, When the Smoke Clears: Sixty 6, Sixty 1 and Most Known Unknown, have been certified platinum. Three 6 Mafia's music has sold nearly six million albums to date. It was so far ahead of its time and now it's just catching onto the masses." "We put up $4500 and put the music out ourselves and it blew up. "We put our own money behind it," he recalls. Undeterred, the group decided to seek alternate ways to break into an industry that wasn't yet quite receptive to hip-hop that wasn't from New York or out on the West Coast. Radio stations didn't want to play it and this and that." So when we came out talking about it, we were so far ahead of our time that no record labels wanted to sign us. "We were talking about drugs and getting crunk and fighting in the club and crazy stuff that no one was talking about. "You know what? I think it just got a little easier out here for a pimp," Oscar host Jon Stewart joked after their performance."To be honest with you, we was before our time," DJ Paul says over the phone about the group's ability to remain relevant for such a long period of time. When Howard declined to perform the song at the 2006 ceremony, Three 6 Mafia became the first rap group on an Oscar stage. The song was performed by the film's star, Terence Howard, and would earn the group their first Oscar.
In 2005, they co-wrote "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" for the movie Hustle and Flow. They returned in 2003 with Da Unbreakables and had their best Billboard debut two years later with Most Known Unknown. They continued to drop independent albums throughout the late '90s, and in 2000 scored another huge hit with their classic codeine-endorsing single "Sippin' on Some Syrup." In 2001 they ventured into film with the epic crime-life movie Choices. Originally known as the Triple 6 Mafia, their blend of hypnotic yet hype production and over-the-top lyrical attacks soon endeared them to the nation at large. The first crew to put Memphis on the rap map, Three 6 Mafia busted onto the national scene with their rowdy crossover hit "Tear Da Club Up" in 1996.