Sound Field

- You ready to get crunk, Nahre?

- Is this crunk?

- This is getting crunk, you gotta do it like this.

You gotta pull down.

- Like this, down or up?

- Pull, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull.

(laughter) - Booming 808 beats, catchy group vocal hooks, quick hi-hat rolls and a triplet rap flow.

These are some of the defining features of trap music, today's most popular hip-hop genre.

I did the math, it's like two-thousand dollars every word I'm on the verge Gucci gang, Gucci gang, Gucci gang, Gucci gang, spend ten racks on a new chain Something wrong with him, he ain't add it up We laugh at them, they mad at us - But let's go back 25 years to a group that pioneered the sound before the word 'trap' was even used to describe music.

Tear the club up, tear the club up, tear the club up - In our episode on trap music, we covered how the genre was formed in Atlanta by artists Gucci Mane, T.I.

and Young Jeezy, to become the phenomenon that it is today.

But now, we want to focus on a group that came before them, and lay the groundwork for trap: Three 6 Mafia.

What we call trap music today is really a blend of several hip-hop genres from all over the South.

One of the most influential is crunk, a slower, more severe style of rap music that weaved club and party culture with gang life.

Although Three 6 Mafia is responsible for popularizing the genre, the sound can be traced to another Memphis artist DJ Spanish Fly.

On your way back, bring me his son - I'm not familiar with any of these artists.

- Okay, okay.

- Yeah, it's been eye-opening.

- Not even like the newer stuff like Soulja Boy?

You know about Soulja Boy?

- Yeah, no.

(laughter) No, not at all.

- That's cold.

- For me as a musician, hearing the different elements of what goes into music like crunk music, it makes me kind of think about these specific musical elements really allow the musicians to tap into these types of emotions, and I think that's fascinating.

Sonically, crunk emphasizes aggression and tension via minor chords, slower tempos, distorted bass, contrasting rhythms, and often abrasive tambours.

You can hear this in the video game-like beats of Tommy Wright the third.

Won't go to jail now or later, Step to me, you'll meet your maker Early crunk producers often used these homemade sounds in place of the standard hip-hop building blocks of funk and soul samples used by East Coast rappers.

This sound was paralleled by the growing popularity of the dancing style called "Gangsta Walking", which moved between elegant, fluid footwork to dramatic pop-locking and stomps.

(intense hip-hop music) - In the early 90's, Three 6 Mafia emerged from Memphis' DIY Mixtape community, where local artists would create and sell cassette tapes that mixed their own music with popular hip-hop.

While in high school, DJ Paul and Lord Infamous formed the Serial Killaz and put out regular mixtapes, adding their own production and layers of triplet rap flows to hip-hop hits.

These self-produced hybrid playlists allowed up-and-coming and entrepreneurial rappers to promote their music and make money in the process.

In the early 90's, the duo began working with other local artists.

After adding producer Juicy J, rappers Gangsta Boo, Crunchy Black, and Koopsta joined and the group took on the name Three 6 Mafia.

As crunk became more popular in Memphis during the early 90's, the city's black community was under siege from the crack epidemic.

Increasing street violence made it one of America's most dangerous cities.

The hard-hitting sound of Three 6 Mafia echoed the rawness of these issues.

The vocal chants, Lord Infamous' triplet flows, and DJ Paul's menacing minimalist beats created the model for early crunk, and the sonic template for trap music.

Ashes to ashes no dust to dust and you can't trust Three 6 Mafia when we tearing that club up - Like it's ultra-violent lyrics, Three 6 Mafia emphasized tension sonically in the music.

In their 1997 track "Prophet Posse", the sample of the triggerman beat is in a different key than the synthesizer melodies, creating a polytonal harmony, the simultaneous use of two or more keys in a musical composition.

(hip-hop beat plays) Of course it's not a new trick.

This technique has been used by many composers, including myself, to create tension between what most listeners expect, a standard progression that resolves to a stable tonic, and what we get, dissonance.

So this is an example of poly-harmony.

We have one key E Major, another one F Major.

Combine them.

Something like this.

(dissonant piano melody) Three 6 Mafia's beats lay down the groundwork for today's trap music.

Their songs amp up the listener through heavy bass lines, synthesizer melodies, minor key harmonies that create a foreboding mood, and of course the rolling 808.

We can even hear how these intermittent hi-hat rolls would turn into the rapid-fire hi-hat sound of Atlanta trap.

Let me see you tear da, tear da club up Mafia, mafi-mafia - Beats are not the only way Three 6 has inspired today's rap music.

Today we call the double-time triplet flow the Migos flow.

I give her ten racks, I told her go shopping and spend it all at the pop-up But it's actually Lord Infamous of Three 6 Mafia who is credited as the originator.

When you walk through the wilderness be very quiet, Lord Infamous might be out stalking While this claim caused beef between Three 6 Mafia and Cleveland's Bone Thugs n Harmony, the Memphis flow was declamatory, in your face, regular in meter, and more staccato than Bone Thugs' harmonic and more rhythmically complex group rapping.

Here's the trap superstar 2 Chainz stating this claim in his song "Trap Back".

This flow come from Drizzy, he got it from Migos, They got it from Three 6 In the early 2000's, crunk rocked the charts.

Songs by Atlanta-based artists like Lil Jon and the Eastside Boyz "Get Low", and the Ying Yang Twins "Salt Shaker" had crossover popularity both in dance clubs and in the strip club scene.

Variations of crunk began emerging on hip-hop radio.

Like snap music.

(song plays) Somewhere during this time, the sounds of crunk, snap, trap and other hip-hop genres from the South all merged into one.

Today we just call it all trap, but it's really a mix of New Orleans bounce, Houston chopped and screwed, Miami bass, and Memphis crunk.

- It's hard to point the origin to one city or artist, but Three 6 Mafia were instrumental in creating the sound of modern hip-hop.

Their inspiration can be heard in everything from the Migos flow to ASAP Mob's beats.

Some artists even go so far as copying the group chants.

Rapper Travis Scott was sued by DJ Paul for using the"Tear Da Club Up" chant in his 2018 song "No Bystanders".

(song plays) - Nahre and I are going to create a Three 6 Mafia inspired track.

The simplicity is the main thing.

Notice all this stuff going on in the track?

And it still sounds simple.

Maybe it's because of the polytonality.

- It has to rub, the different chords have to rub.

Let's see.

(dissonant piano melody) - Real quick, Nahre.

What is that from?

What are you doing, you just made that up just now?

- Yeah.

- Okay, can you remember that, keep that?

(piano note and laughter) - I lost it already, no.

- One of the characteristics of crunk music is the distorted 808 like... Know what I'm saying?

You hear that in the trunk rattling, down the street, like you know the 808 is definitely distorted.

- Uh-huh, got it.

- But other ones it's like... With the attack really punching.

And usually, I want to go for like a more clean, more round, more warm 808.

I stay away from the distorted joints, but this is going to be cool.

- I think it will be fun for us to put this together because we can just be uninhibited.

- Yeah, yeah, just yeah, yeah.

(trap beat plays) Whoa We put the instrumental of our original song on Soundcloud, so go download it and rap on it.

Go ahead.