They’ve been part of the major-label machine for a decade, and they’ve knowingly crafted novelty hits, even showing up to the 2000 Source Awards brandishing baby-bottles full of cough syrup. And it’s not like they never tried to become popular.
They’re the products of a scene as much as they are the pioneers of one. Their monstrous, monolithic horrorcrunk style has precedents in Memphis get-buck music and in the thumping bombast of the No Limit house producers, as well as probably a few dozen out-of-the-trunk Southern rappers and producers who I’ve never heard and who I’ll probably never hear. They’re not maverick geniuses who formed in a cultural vacuum. They’ve always had their own aesthetic, but that aesthetic probably owes its existence as much to circumstance as to the artistic visions of DJ Paul and Juicy J. It’s not like I have a lot of illusions about this group. Look: it’s not like Three 6 Mafia are this unimpeachable artistic powerhouse or that they’ve spent a career resisting their most commercial urges before finally throwing their hands up and jumping in with everyone else. The thing that kills me isn’t just that I should’ve seen it coming it’s that I sort of did. I guess everyone has to have a moment like this, a real soul-destroying glimpse at a favorite artist losing the plot and making terrible decisions for even worse reasons.
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