HARD OUT HERE:
Memphis,TN, was once known for Coming Out Hard. But these days, it’s hard for them to come up. by Jacinta Howard
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he year was 1976. Stax Records, largely recognized as the first Motown because of its talented roster of artists that included Isaac Hayes, Rufus and Carla Thomas, Otis Redding and Sam and Dave, had just folded. The city of Memphis was reeling. The demise of the label was more than a disappointment for the plight of the city’s black musicians; it was a devastating blow. Memphis would never fully recover. Though Elvis Presley immediately comes to mind when the average person thinks about Memphis, if you walk the streets of the Bluff City, absorbing the people and culture it becomes clear that the “King’s” presence is more like the Statue of Liberty in New York - a recognizable landmark more relevant to tourism than a realistic representation of the city. Still mostly segregated, with the majority of white people living in the far eastern section, Memphis is veiled in poverty. Sure, FedEx is based there, but for most black people that simply means more warehouse jobs. “Memphis is a poor city,” says veteran rapper RedBoss, who was reared in the notorious Orange Mound. “Everybody is really territorial and gangsta. It’s a hard city but it’s a music city.” Indeed, Memphis’ artist roster reads like a Who’s Who List for black music. From Al Green, Isaac Hayes, Sam and Dave and the Bar-Kays to 8Ball & MJG, Three 6 Mafia, Jazzy Pha and Tela, there’s no denying the soulful, piercing sound that courses through the city’s veins. It’s a powerful vibe shaped by poverty and bred by injustice. A mixture of triumph and pain, Memphis served as an incubator for the blues and a coffin for Martin Luther King, Jr. Naturally, those complexities are represented in the music. But even with its innovative musical history, for the most part Memphis still labors in the shadows of cities like its sister, Atlanta, Houston, Philadelphia, and Chicago. If you had told someone from Memphis that ten years ago, they would’ve laughed at you.
// Coming Out Hard
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ou can’t really talk about the Memphis rap scene without mentioning Gangsta Pat and DJ Spanish Fly. Pat is largely credited with being the first rapper from Memphis and Spanish Fly was among the first DJs to penetrate the streets with mixtapes in the mid and late 80s. Originally signed to OTS Records, it was Pat who first landed a major deal with Atlantic/WEA and in March 1991 released #1 Suspect which spawned the hit “I Am Tha Gangsta.” Though the song was first on one of his earlier mixtapes, it solidified the birth of a new movement: gangsta walkin’. Later that year, producer SMK (E-40) released The Real Side of Me which featured “Gangster Walk.”
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“In the early to mid-90s a lot of Memphis artists were focused on the Memphis style of music that’s now being referred to as ‘crunk,’” explains music veteran DJ Howard Q. Over the years, he’s worked with virtually every artist in Memphis and has witnessed the progression of the city firsthand. “A lot of that music started here back in the late eighties to early nineties - the triple tongue rap style, the snare beats and really low end bass that Three 6 Mafia is known for now was pretty much the style of Memphis rappers.” Suddenly the city’s rap scene began to bubble, aided largely by a popular club, Studio G, where local artists like 8ball & MJG and DJ Zurk would sell mixtapes. While the mixtape scene started in the 80s it was perfected with the arrival of Orange Mound native, DJ Squeeky. BigYO, half of the production team Marshall Law Productions (Playa Fly, Kingpin Skinny Pimp, Indo G, Lil Blunt, Ying Yang Twins) hails from Blackhaven on the southside of Memphis and remembers Squeeky’s impact. “At the time he had the underground on lock because he had all of the popular rappers on his mixtapes,” he recalls. Squeeky’s mixtapes were a showcase of Memphis’ elite talent. But when he released the classic song, “Lookin’ for the Chewin’” which featured Ball & G, DJ Zurk, and Skinny Pimp, it not only solidified his importance to the burgeoning rap scene, but helped establish the careers of Skinny and Ball & G. Not much later, on the other side of town DJ Paul of Three 6 Mafia began releasing mixtapes as well and soon became competition for Squeeky. The groundwork was laid for the beef that still exists between the two. “I used to do mixtapes on the north side and Paul was doing tapes on the south side of town and we got introduced and started doing stuff together and then started Three 6 Mafia,” says Juicy J. “It started with three people, then we added three more and then it was like a posse thing. We had other rappers that we signed on the group like Project Pat. It was a big entourage.” Meanwhile, artists like Al Kapone and Indo G & Lil Blunt were making noise on mixtapes as well, working with SMK. Then in 1993 Memphis got a huge break. 8Ball & MJG, who had left for Houston to sign with Tony Draper’s Suave House Records, released Coming Out Hard. Suddenly, people were paying attention. The city that had suffered so much heartache had something to hope for. The rap scene now wide open, Indo G & Lil Blunt dropped The Antidote on Miami bass legend Luke’s imprint in January 1995, propelled by the single, “Blame it on the Funk.” But it was Triple 6’s Mystic Stylez released on their label, Prophet Records and distributed by Select-O-Hits later that May that would come to define the year. It was the album that made Skinny