I seen how TV can hurt And plus platinum plaques to match And add them 20”s and vogues And Gucci jackets on backs We got them BentlEys and Benzes And all them Lexus on lock The picture gettin’ kind of clearer I see why them bitches hot You hoes is strugglin’ and starvin’ And wanna rise in the hood It’s cold I’m crankin’ up heat And you wish you could Y’all wish y’all could get back with us Then maybe then you could shine Like the rappers you wish you was And get off the grind I’m keepin’ one in the chamber Because I’m filled up with anger And when I see you little hoe ‘n’ You knowin’ your life’s in danger I do a show y’all in the front row Hollerin’ all kinds of shit Is that the best way that you know To get attention lil bitch I understand how they feel They feelin’ that they left out And we the ones movin’ on So we the ones talked about But niggaz give it your best And one day then you’ll get a crown But until then take you a hit of coke And keep feelin’ down ‘Cause suckaz... that’s real DJ Paul - taken from “Mafia” on the Choices soundtrack DJ Paul calls himself the King Of Memphis, but he’s currently ruling from his castle in Los Angeles. “L.A. is our number one market. We sell more [albums] here more than anywhere else,” says Paul, who’s been living there since 2006 when he and his production partner and fellow Three Six Mafia member Juicy J won an Oscar for “Hard Out Here For A Pimp,” the song that made the film Hustle & Flow appear to be better than what it actually was. “I liked hearing that, but I never believed it until we actually got here. We still have our cribs in Memphis and I’m still there at least twice a month. But we’re out here in L.A.. most of the time.” With that move, DJ Paul has found himself in a position that many successful rappers/producers before him have had to wiggle in. Stay true to the hardcore fanbase, or enter untested waters to gain new ones. So far, Paul thinks he’s playing the game right. “When the last album came out, it had gangsta shit on it, but the single scared some of the hardcore fans,” says Paul of Three Six Mafia’s 2008 album Last 2 Walk and its pop single “Lolli Lolli.” “People thought we went Hollywood. What the [diehard] fans don’t realize is that songs like ‘Lolli’ are for the new fans. All that gangsta shit doesn’t make it to the radio. I wish it did. I wish I could make a ‘Smoked Out Loc’ced Out’ for the radio. As much as you want the gangster shit, you’ve gotta give radio something to play.” Say what you will, DJ Paul has emerged from an underground producer selling beats in Memphis’ underbelly to a man who has built enough clout to not only produce for fellow M-town native Justin Timberlake, but get clearance to use hometown hero Elvis Presley samples. He prob64 // OZONE MAG
ably would not have been able to do that by not taking some musical risks here and there. Paul’s latest musical risk could be one that shapes how the rest of his career will go from this point. Sensing that his from-day-one fanbase was getting antsy amidst the Oscar-winning and MTV-reality-show-hosting, Paul is returning to his independent roots and releasing a new solo album, Scale-A-Ton. “Scale-A-Ton is a gift to the fans,” says Paul, of his first independent solo outing since 2002’s King Of Memphis. “Nothing poppy, nothing shiny. Sex, drugs, money, murder. That’s it in one line. The old fans will love it because it’s the shit they grew up listening to.” So you’re living in Los Angeles now. Do you see any similarities between Memphis and LaLa Land? That’s what people get twisted. L.A. ain’t LaLa Land. Anyone who’s been there or even watched a movie [about L.A.] knows that L.A. is the gang capital. The biggest gang cities I know of or hear about are Chicago and L.A. and New York. L.A. is a gang city. Yeah, you’ve got Bel Air and Beverly Hills too, but it ain’t all like that. It ain’t all Beverly Hills Cop shit. I think it became one of biggest markets because, one, the crossover songs we do. We first got strong in L.A. with “Stay Fly.” It opened a lot of doors. I think we do well here because there’s a lot of gangsters in L.A. and Mexicans and crazy white boys. Look at what they grew up on: N.W.A. Our music was influenced by them as well. I guess we were a new N.W.A to them. But it took “Stay Fly” to let [the mainstream] know about us more, so they went and checked out the album. The main people that come up to me are a lot of wild girls that get drunk and party, and I love them, by the way. We get a lot of Hispanics too. Latinos are one of our biggest fan bases. That’s why were so strong in L.A. Plus, there are so many people in L.A. that are from the South, especially from Louisiana. I just did a show in Louisiana for Mardi Gras, and there were people who came from L.A. to Mardi Gras to see us because they said we don’t perform enough in L.A. One of my guys who cuts my hair [in L.A.] is from Louisiana. My favorite soul food spot here, Mom’s, the owner is from Louisiana. I found out about that from Steve Harvey. You’ve obviously amassed a lot more popularity over the last few years on the mainstream level. Have you noticed any changes in how people treat you or approach you? Every where we go people love us. As long as you’re a real nigga, you’re okay. As long you find the other real niggas, you’re okay. Even if you don’t find the other real niggas, you’re still okay because the phony niggas are gonna be afraid of you. You can see it on our Kyte cam when we went to Germany and Amsterdam to do our European tour. We did our New Year’s Eve show in Asia in Taiwan. We get love everywhere we go. The problem with a lot of niggas is that they want that love too. If I walk in the door and be like, “I got an Oscar!” we won’t get that love. I still walk up in places like the last nigga up in there. I’ll have a t-shirt and Dickies on. I might have some Gucci shoes and a belt though. I’m buying drinks; we came to party. I’ma liven up the room. People are always surprised, like, “Y’all ain’t act like I thought you were gonna act.” People [are] defensive until they see that we’re some real niggas. Unless they’re just some mad-at-the-world type niggas. (laughs)
Three Six Mafia and the Prophet Posse was already kind of thinning out before the mainstream success. Have you lost even more friends since then? Of course you lose friends. But you gain acquaintances. I’ve got a lot of new people I’ve met and hang around every day. They may not be my friend, though. Anyone with money, from Donald Trump to a lemonade stand [owner], is going to lose friends. Anytime you get money you’re gonna have someone in your mix that’s gonna want some. And when you stop giving them money that’s when they come with the, “Aw, you’re rich, you got it.” But they don’t realize you’ve got your own family and shit to take care of. So when folks would come up to me asking for money I’d be like, “Okay, hold the keys to this van right here. I’ve got a show in Mississippi. Drive me down there, and I’ll have a check for you at end of the night.” That’s how I do. It’s better to teach a nigga how to fish than give them a fish. As far as the groups, a lot of the people in my groups were homies. They weren’t even rappers at first. I’d get them in [the booth] and write them a rap. They’d start feeling good and it just built from there. About the groups, how did Three Six even form? It was two crews formed together. I had my crew, and Juicy had his. It was Juicy, Project and some other guys from the Northside. I don’t think they had a name. I had my guys, me and Lord Infamous and some guys, we called ourselves The Serial Killers. Gangsta Boo and Crunchy Black and them just hung out with us because we went to school together. Then Koopsta Nicca came along. That’s how it started, and once we got together and it got big, other people came in. We were also producing on the side. I was producing for Skinny Pimp. We just got together and made a team. What were those early days like? Juicy and I were recording at our mom’s crib. We had an apartment that was a honeycomb hideout. It was Crunchy’s house most of the time because he kept an apartment. We hung out at my mom’s pad; no smoking in that muthafucka. We could roll and record in there, but we’d go outside by the pine cone trees and smoke. Most of the time someone in the clique had a girlfriend that was a stripper. It’s always good to have one of those. We’d find a girl who needed a little help. This was back in the day when we ain’t have our own cribs. Niggas always gonna have a car though, staying with mom but got a Chevy sitting on something. I had an apartment but my shit was lowkey. We would find some girls who had their own spot but no car. So we’d be her ride to work, and in exchange we’d use the apartment to slang or hang. Backscratch for a backscratch. Out of that, when and how did you start making albums? We were making the cassette tapes back in the day. When I was in 9th grade I took some money I had from other shit I was doing and pressed up The Serial Killers. I took the picture and pressed up the copies. This was before we met Juicy. He already had tapes out himself, I believe. I didn’t want to be a DJ or a rapper, I wanted to be a producer, but DJing is what ended up happening. We sold about 2,000 of those tapes at $5 each. I took that money and got some equipment. I recorded the first EP at Jus Born’s house. I made some little bread and got some help from my brother and got some more equipment. I