It's typically understood that New York City, Los Angeles and Atlanta constitute the holy trinity of hip hop cities, with any honorable mentions being reserved for Chicago or Houston. The chapter in hip hop history written by Memphis, however, seems to get overlooked all too often for its brevity and negligible commercial success. But to limit one's impression of Southern hip hop to Outkast and UGK is to ignore the unrivaled variation that is present in the area.
Since the east coast had claimed Boom Bap and the west coast G-Funk, it was up to the South to validate and distinguish itself as a competitive force within the genre. Before Outkast's skyrocketing popularity at the beginning of the '00s, the South was frequently written off as a third wheel in hip hop. This unwarranted degradation hardened the psyche of Southern artists and perpetuated them to create sounds that no other rappers or producers would have imagined. To this day, the most original and provocative hip hop tends to emerge from the South in spite of lingering coastal elitism.
Memphis, above all other cities in the '90s, embodied this drive to be different and adopted a DIY culture of producing and distributing music without the help of record labels. This is the reason there are hardly any Memphis rap albums available on CD or vinyl - the genre was almost entirely restricted to cassette tapes that were passed around on the streets. Naturally, this made it less accessible and resulted in a very raw and unpolished sound, but these factors only served to redouble intrigue among fans.
While certainly borrowing elements from Miami bass and horrorcore, Memphis rap managed to set itself apart from the rest of hip hop in numerous ways, and has since influenced countless other artists. The sound was so unlike anything that had came before and was at least fifteen years ahead of its time, a large reason why it never gained any real mainstream traction outside of Memphis.
The now ubiquitous triplet flow utilized by popular trap rappers like Migos and Future was originated by Lord Infamous of Three 6 Mafia in the early '90s (actually '89, according to DJ Paul) - two decades before it would start to catch on in other circles. That's not to say others didn't try to mimic the flow, however. Bone Thugs n' Harmony, the Cleveland group who experienced much more commercial success than any Memphis rapper of the '90s, was accused of hijacking the technique by a number of Memphis rap's most vaunted figures. After Bone Thugs slighted them in a Vibe magazine interview, Three 6 Mafia themselves released a diss track in '95 entitled Live By Yo Rep ("But first, I wanna slowly pull off all yo' skin / Get grease and boil it hot, pour it on you and yo' dead friends"), and Tommy Wright III dropped the vicious Thuggish Ruggish Bustaz a year later ("Keep Tennessee up out yo' mouth next time a magazine ask you for a comment / We gonna see you if you can still rap fast when I snatch yo' tongue out from yo' stomach"). A sense of identity in Memphis rap had already formed, and its creators were determined to defend it.
The production they employed was lo-fi and bass-heavy but managed to really distinguish itself by being both downtempo and conservative on samples as well. When a sample was used it was to serve a very specific purpose. For example, the Tommy Wright III track above bitingly incorporates samples of Bone Thugs' hooks as parts of the disses. Horn and piano samples were most common, often pitched down to fit the eerie atmosphere entrenched in the music. But movie sound bites were also taken advantage of, none more so perhaps than those flipped by the groundbreaking DJ Paul of Three 6. Fuckin Wit Dis Click samples a menacing thunderstorm, Sweet Robbery (pt. 2) a maniacal laugh, and Mystic Stylez a Beavis and Butthead interchange.
Artists further carved out their own lane by avoiding some of the lyrical tropes of the genre. Of course, they would discuss sex, drugs and violence, but always with a sense of nihilism rather than celebration. The raps were decidedly not party-oriented and were frequently quite graphic and disturbed. Memphis rap was the first to openly and regularly address feelings of isolation and depression, topics which were virtually taboo in the braggadocio of early hip hop.
Such candidness can be endearing, but was taken to extremes in the vivid and visceral depictions of violence. The evident anguish that these rappers were undergoing from a sort of neglected street PTSD weighed heavily on them, manifesting itself in these horrific images and impassioned characterizations of their depression.
Take Lowdown da Sinista's Going Thru A Thing, for instance, as it embodies a number of these notions - "But time and time again, once in a while you might hear me cry / It's not because I'm soft, it's because I wanna die". In admitting suicidal thoughts we see him not seeking assistance or sympathy but rather having to immediately defend his masculinity because of how unspeakable it was at the time to concede any sort of weaknesses. Lowdown further exemplifies his cynicism and hopelessness when he tell us of his tendency to "Reminisce about the good times when we was youngstas / Growin' up to be some killas and some crack hustlas".
In the quintessential Late Nite Tip, Koopsta Knicca displays even more vulnerability - "Always kinda lonely, someone want me, hold me / I said, come near, come near, come here, the Koopsta cryin' tears / I can't think positive when no one cares of how I feel". Thus was the burden of one's grief being muted by the expectations of a black man in hip hop.
These lyrical themes, as well as the grim, lo-fi production and anti-establishment disposition of the genre, liken it to black metal. But within Southern rap it has been immeasurably important, influencing nearly every subsequent development from crunk to trap rap. As a result, Memphis rap has aged incredibly well; many of its songs sound as if they could easily be mistaken for modern trap.
Beyond these technical points there are a number of finer details and idiosyncrasies to be appreciated in Memphis rap. Much of it so difficult to track down and feels so roughly cut that you get the impression you're the only person whose ever listened to it, and that somewhat allows you to identify with the artists' loneliness. There are plenty of aggressive tracks that might convince you to Find A Hoe or Blow A Niggaz Ass Off, but then there are tracks like Da Summa that are so delicately hypnotic they seem to put you in a trance and slow time to a crawl.
One of the most interesting facets of the genre is the curious proportion of women and children within it, and the fact that they seem to be even more offensive in hopes of compensating for their status as such. Rappers like Lil Gin and Lil Yo put out music well beyond their years at only thirteen. No less than two members of Three 6 were female - Gangsta Boo "The Devil's Daughter" and La Chat - and both were only sixteen when the group's debut album was released. The Legend Lady J dropped the classic Glock N My Hand tape in '94 and Tha Boss Bitch delivered Psycho during the transition point between Memphis rap and crunk. Then there are the mystery cases like Lady Bee, who many believe to be a transvestite alter-ego of Kingpin Skinny Pimp. This inclusion of both women and children, at a time when the rest of hip hop was still almost male-exclusive, is a powerful testament to how important the sound was to Memphis and how willingly defiant it was of any current trends. It managed to advance the boundaries of hip hop not only musically, but culturally as well.
Unfortunately, Memphis rap's local popularity faded around the turn of the century as most of its artists either adapted and were absorbed into the Crunk movement or returned to the streets and abandoned their musical careers entirely. Its aesthetic, however, has been resurrected by other American acts such as Lil Ugly Mane and Denzel Curry and has even spawned popular Finnish offshoots. There is certainly something nostalgic in losing the independent mixtape culture of the streets to the internet, but this has also allowed the genre to live on in spite of its scarce physical media by introducing it to a whole other generation of fans that wouldn't otherwise have access to it.
