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​The first grime record I bought was from a market stall on the side of a race track. Some of the best reggae I've heard was at 7am in a warehouse in North London. My mum bought me my first Metallica CD. Music is the lifeblood of serendipity. We're just the bags of meat blindsided by it.

There's something of the underdog in Tennessee when you talk about hip-hop. The sun shines on the birthplace of rock 'n' roll, but it's in the shadow of the King where one of its most creative communities is starting to make noise.

Not that Tennessee hasn't been bringing the ruckus for years. The volunteer state has produced some of today's most successful hip-hop artists, from Young Buck to Juicy J, but to get a truer sense of the heart of Tennessee rap you need dig a little deeper. Past the iPod and the mixtapes, blow the dust off the cassette tapes and brush down the acetates to discover a sound so ahead of its time it sounds a lot like what you're listening to right now.

Mike Floss is a Nashville rapper on the rise, his last few singles Dopeboy Dreaming and Kerosene have seen him premiered on Complex and featured on Tidal Discovery. The young rapper has a mixed style - equal parts honey warble hooks and machine gun verses - that's heavily influenced by those that came before him. When I asked him to describe what made Tennessee rap so unique, he didn't hesitate: "In Nashville particularly it's all about heavy lyricism and heavy beats. Like a ton of bars on top of 808s. We live for the energy and the bass."

In the late eighties, much the same as in Tennessee now, if you wanted to make rap music you were doing it on Roland drum machines and ancient synthesisers that more akin to John Carpenter film soundtracks than boom bap. The result was a tenebrous dreamlike sound, bled with an 808 and punctuated by hard lyrics and sub bass. In analogue terms, Tennessee rap was shooting on film whilst the rest of the scene was busy messing about with fancy DSLRs.

"Man, Memphis was so far ahead of its time with that whole wave it's kinda scary. I don't even think they realised how ahead they were," Mike tells me. His latest track "Kerosene" trades off some of these early imprints of style. His producer Shmuck The Loyal introduced him to the pioneers of the Tennessee sound, chiefly, its oft-cited architect, DJ Spanish Fly.

Fly grew up the son of two pastors, father and step-father - the latter was blind and needed help getting to and from places. One of those places happened to be a radio station where his stepfather would provide a sermon. Whilst his stepfather preached in Studio A, the young Fly sat in Studio B watching the DJ making magic with the soundboard.

When hip hop reached Tennessee in the late eighties, the clubs were too preoccupied with disco to care much about it. Fly, however, was hooked. He started putting out beats and tapes in his own warped style. Similar to the way rave music was growing in the UK around the same time, Tennessee's hip-hop scene expanded outward from parties and permeated throughout the state's inner city neighbourhoods in the form of tapes and dubs. Fly's smooth style was the perfect tonic for the party scene, tunes like Slangin' Caine and Cement Shoes, especially, had that dual appeal of bringing girls to the dancefloor and making the screwfaces bob their heads.

When it finally broke into the club scene, the resulting culture clash between Tennessee rap's bass laden, thugged out sound and the constraints of the era's then satin and silk dancefloor fillers was best captured in the "Gangsta Walk"; where dancers would wile out to rap whilst the disco crowd waited for "Dominatrix" to come back on. It was a moshpit of catharsis, they called it the buck dance.

Spitters like Tommy Wright III and Princess Loko brought a floaty cantillation to a sound that would go pound for pound with the likes of hard vapour and cloud rap today. On Tommy Wright III's Four Corners, in particular, you can hear similarities in vocals, distortion and pitching down, to artists like A$AP Rocky and SpaceGhostPurrp. To get a sense of how current these records actually were you could do no better than checking out any number of the mixes Dutch based electronic producer, Legowelt, a big fan of the rap coming out of Memphis in the 90s, has put out in recent years. ​

On this bed of Badalementi-esque synth Tennessee rap grew parallel to the growth of hip-hop across the country. The raffish production fueled more intense and imaginative lyrics until Tennessee rap became notoriously hardcore.

If Spanish Fly was the architect of the sound then Three Six Mafia represented the lean-sipping, gatekeepers of the energy that kept it banging through the 90s and beyond. Three Six Mafia took street level storytelling from the gangsta rappers around them and turned them into hyper violent horror films. If Nas was hip-hop's John Dillinger, Three Six Mafia were the genre's Charles Bronson grinning maniacally from behind the easel.

Three Six Mafia were an ever-revolving group of MC's with the two constants being Juicy J and DJ Paul. They were your rapper's favourite rap group and probably the first to bring the drugs they were on, mostly lean and weed, into their lyrics.

Their albums Most Known Unknown and When the Smoke Clears: Sixty 6, Sixty 1, released at the tail end of the 90s, showed off a style of hooks that used repetition to create a purped out delirium. It was this style, on tracks like "Sippin On Some Syrup", that directly influenced Dizzee Rascal's debut album Boy In Da Corner, most notably "I Luv You" which uses that same repetitive style for the hook.

In 2006, Three Six Mafia were awarded an Oscar for their song "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp" from the film Hustle and Flow, the first and only rap group to win the award. 10 years on, DJ Paul recollected his memory of their performance at the award ceremony for the Hollywood Reporter: "This was the most different concert I'd ever done. I'm used to looking in the crowd and seeing drug dealers and gangbangers. But this crowd was out there in gowns and tuxes and all kind of shit."

These days Tennessee has an abundance of creative talents to call upon. Artists like Yo Gotti and Young Dolph have done much to put Tennessee firmly back in the mainstream. At street level the energy is indefatigable, even if there's still limitations to the scene's infrastructure - I spoke to Terry Rickards who manages the bookings at The Basement East in Nashville and to date he's only ever booked two rappers.

"I know very little about it other than what's on the radio. And to book something you should be very knowledgeable of the genre." Terry told me, which actually sounds fair enough, but Nashville and Tennessee's other cities need more venues and booking agents that are knowledgeable of the genre and can provide its young talents some much needed support.

I spoke to Ducko McFli, a Nashville producer behind Drake's Draft Day record and Migos' Fuckemx3 beat, to understand how artists like himself and others are finding a place for their music against the tide of country music. "Nashville doesn't want to see rap win," Ducko tells me. "They do, but you got to remember Nashville's like the country music hall of fame. We're battling one of the biggest music industry's in the world. That, alone, has what's really lead the unity in Nashville, you know, just people really coming together to go 'We all can't change Nashville by ourselves, but if we coming together...' you know."

That unity is something that's come to define Tennessee music in 2016. Young artists and producers are coming together to put their sounds out. In Memphis, artists like Cities Aviv are pushing the boundaries of the electronic imprint in the Tennessee sound, and winning new fans over for it. For all the hurdles the scene faces there seems to be an inexhaustible number of young talents ready to rise above, after all that's exactly how the sound started.

"Love is the revolution bro," Mike Floss tells me. "We not here to hate, all we wanna do is make our music, get paid for it, and live our dreams. If you on the same thing and your music is dope, we gon rock with you. So we support each other, go to the shows, and spread the word when we can. It only makes sense." In Elvis' backyard it seems, then, hip hop has a good foundation and a heavy future.
To find out more about the 150th anniversary of Jack Daniel's visit here​.

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Tennessee Rap is Finally Outgrowing its Underdog Status

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​The first grime record I bought was from a market stall on the side of a race track. Some of the best reggae I've heard was at 7am in a warehouse in North London. My mum bought me my first Metallica CD. Music is the lifeblood of serendipity.

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FUCK GOTTI

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CLOSE

The relationship between Memphis rappers Yo Gotti and Young Dolph, and the tensions between the two artists, have been a major story line in Memphis hip-hop for the better part of the last three years.

Dolph (real name, Adolph Thornton Jr.) was shot in Los Angeles outside the Lowes Hollywood hotel on Tuesday. Subsequent media reports suggested the incident was somehow the result of a long running musical and personal feud with another Memphis MC, Yo Gotti (real name, Mario Mims).

The Los Angeles Police Department has twice denied to The Commercial Appeal that Gotti - who was staying at the same hotel as Dolph - is a person of interest in the investigation. On Wednesday, Corey McClendon of Memphis was arrested and charged with attempted murder.

► Young Dolph: 5 things to know about the Memphis rapper

Rapper Young Dolph in concert on Sept. 25, 2017, in Austin, Texas. (Photo: Rick Kern, WireImage)

Police said they do not know if McClendon and Gotti are associates. However, McClendon and Gotti were both arrested in 2010 after five people were shot in the parking lot of Level II nightclub on American Way.

The charges against Gotti were dropped in the 2010 brawl due to a lack of witnesses. McClendon was shot during the brawl.

In Tuesday's shooting, Dolph was critically injured, but is expected to survive. It's the second time he's been shot this year. In February, he was fired at in Charlotte, North Carolina. Gotti associate, Blac Youngsta (real name, Sammie Benson), was among the men charged in that incident.

Though it's never been confirmed - by both parties, anyway - the roots of the feud likely began in 2014, when Dolph - then just emerging as a mixtape artist - began saying publicly that he'd turned down an offer to join Gotti's CMG record label.

► More: Memphis man Corey McClendon arrested in Young Dolph shooting

Still, the Dolph-Gotti beef remained a background issue as Gotti's star began to rise. Gotti, who got his start in the mid-'90s as one of the city's quintessential street rappers, released the breakout LP "The Art of Hustle" in 2016. It debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard album charts, hit No. 1 on the R&B/Hip-Hop charts, and quickly proved a breakthrough for the veteran MC. The album would go on to spawn a top five rap and top 20 pop single in "Down in the DM" that has been certified platinum. The record also earned the support of his peers, from Lil Wayne to Pusha T, who guest on the project, to Kanye West, who performed with Gotti during a release party in Los Angeles.

In the winter of 2016, Dolph again alluded to Gotti and his decision not to sign to his CMG label on Twitter. He subsequently released his full-length debut "The King of Memphis", which peaked at number 49 on the Billboard chart. The title alone was incendiary, seen as a direct challenge to Gotti's claim on that position.

Through 2016, the bickering was largely between Dolph and members of Gotti's camp, namely CMG-signed artist Blac Youngsta, who threw a Dolph diss into one of his tracks and filmed a video of himself prowling Dolph's South Memphis neighborhood heavily armed. Gotti mostly stayed on the sidelines and in September of that year, in a video, downplayed any animosity between himself and Dolph.

At the start of 2017, it seemed possible that the whole affair might have been a winking feud manufactured by both men for publicity. Though more likely it was Dolph's attempt to generate his own publicity by going after the better known and more established artist.

In February 2017, Dolph reignited the "feud" with a diss track that took dead aim on Gotti (derisively characterizing him as "Ho Gotti"). The song "Play Wit Yo' B***" suggested he'd been intimate with the mother of Gotti's child.

Gotti took a high-handed approach to the track, logging on to Twitter and noting that he wouldn't stoop to his provocations. "I'm business partners with LA Reid N Jay Z" he wrote, noting CMG's association with the L.A. Reid-run Epic records and Jay-Z's entertainment management company Roc Nation.

Eventually, after more Dolph entreaties, Gotti fired back in song with "Don't Beef Wit Me" - while still refusing to acknowledge his rival by name. Dolph then replied with a video for "Play Wit Yo' Bitch" which featured a Gotti look-alike being mocked.

Soon after, on Feb. 25, while on tour in Charlotte, North Carolina a vehicle Dolph was riding in was shot at. Allegedly more than 100 rounds were fired into the car, which was bulletproof, and Dolph was unharmed, performing a concert that night.

In April, following the shooting, Dolph released his second LP, the fittingly titled "Bulletproof" which debuted at number 36 on the Billboard chart.

In May, Gotti associate Blac Youngsta was one of three men who surrendered to authorities in Charlotte for their alleged involvement in the shooting. According to the Charlotte Observer, "Charlotte-Mecklenburg police charged Blac Youngsta, Frederick Black and Antavius Gardner with six counts each of discharging a weapon into occupied property and felony conspiracy." Youngsta was released on bail and further court proceedings are still awaiting.

Read or Share this story: http://memne.ws/2yu6SeF

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Yo Gotti and Young Dolph: Feud between Memphis rappers runs deep

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CLOSE The relationship between Memphis rappers Yo Gotti and Young Dolph, and the tensions between the two artists, have been a major story line in Memphis hip-hop for the better part of the last three years. Dolph (real name, Adolph Thornton Jr.) was shot in Los Angeles outside the Lowes Hollywood hotel on Tuesday.

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Economic impact of the music industry in Memphis and Shelby County.

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Economic impact of the music industry in Memphis and Shelby County.

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noahs dick fr look like a mf corn dog nugget 

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Most larger cities have a party district that aspires to be like Bourbon Street and the French Quarter in New Orleans; Beale Street is Memphis' version. It's a street that runs nearly 2 miles long from the Mississippi riverfront. Today it's a tourist attraction with blues clubs, gift shops and restaurants run by Performa Entertainment,...

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Memphis rap, also known as Memphis hip hop and in some forms Memphis horrorcore, is a regional subgenre of hip hop music that originated in Memphis, Tennessee in the early 1990s.

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Xavier Wulf is a Rapper based out of Los Angeles, California. He part of the hip-hop collective Seshollowaterboyz alongside Bones, Chris Travis​, and Eddy Baker. Xavieris originally from East Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee.

Biography

Wulf grew up in East Memphis and originally found an interest in photography and photoshop. What originally sparked his interest in rap was listening to a Bone Thugs-n-Harmony mixed CD in middle school. When he was in 11th grade, Xavier and a friend went to a studio and recorded a song. After going back several times, he bought his own studio equipment at his house and started making music under the name Ethel Wulf. Ethel translates to noble, which is how he characterized his sound at the time, and Wolf was an animal he drew inspiration from.

Xavier first got noticed by Amber London of the Raider Klan when he released the song "1st Chapta of tha Phonk". They ended up collaborating on the song "Trillnation" and he started to get more buzz. SpaceGhostPurp, leader of the Raider Klan, eventually caught on and invited Xavier to join his collective. A month later, Xavier released his first mixtape, The Wolfgang's Rodolphe.

Xavier left Raider Klan in June of 2013. He disagreed with the creative direction of the collective and departed to go his own direction. He soon linked up with Bones and collaborated on two mixtapes together, ダサい and Caves.

Xavier gained traction in his own right and started his own crew "The Hollow Gang." As of June 2017, Xavier has over 254,000 followers on SoundCloud, 122,000 followers on Twitter, and over 170,000 followers on Instagram.

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Xavier Wulf is a Rapper based out of Los Angeles, California. He part of the hip-hop collective Seshollowaterboyz alongside Bones, Chris Travis​, and Eddy Baker. Xavier is originally from East Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee.[0] BiographyWulf grew up in East Memphis and originally found an interest in photography and photoshop.

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i can't even call some of you weenies corndogs because you never had bread

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i can't even call some of you weenies corndogs because you never had bread

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BlocBoy JB has been making waves on the net since 2017; the rapper's booming track "Rover" hit the net hard after being released on Jan. 8 this year, acquiring well over a million views in just a months time. The south Memphis rapper recently caught the attention of OVO leader Drake, and the two just linked up for the first time on wax with "Look Alive"

We here at Billboard have created a short list to help you learn a few things about the up and comer. Check out five things to know about BlocBoy JB below.
1. He is from a family of seven and is a native of Memphis, Tennessee.
Born James Baker, BlocBoy is the youngest of seven children and he hails from Memphis, Tennessee; he's quickly becoming one of the lead up-and-comers out of a rowdy, eccentric rap scene in the city. In the latest video for "Look Alive," the rapper brings Drake thru to the magic city, with an appearance from former Memphis Grizzlies power forward Zach Randolph.
2. His "Shoot" dance has the internet going crazy.
Most of BlocBoy JB's videos feature him hitting some sort of eccentric dance, doing everything from bouncing and jogging in place, to hitting a mean two-step. His signature dance, though, is the wild, leg-flailing "Shoot" dance, which was popularized in the "Rover" video, and has even the 6 God trying to replicate it. BlocBoy claims to have made the dance up while in front of the mirror one day.

Drake doing BlocBoyJB's shoot dance last night pic.twitter.com/fQTqrJwAzG
- Hitbox Digital (@Hitboxdigital) January 19, 2018
3. He's being cosigned by some big names.
The "Look Alive" rapper already caught the attention of one of musics' biggest stars in Drizzy Drake, but the infectious "Rover" has had folks like French Montana and New York Giants star wideout Odell Beckham Jr. going crazy over the song.
4. He learned how to engineer through YouTube tutorials.
In an interview with THE FADER, the Memphis rapper mentioned that he would record himself at home in his closet with a simple mic, which he would sneak from his brothers who were already trying to make music. From there, in order to help make his vocals sound better, he learned how to engineer the DIY way: YouTube tutorial videos.
5. He linked up with "Look Alive" producer Tay Keith when he was just 14.
Up and coming producer Tay Keith has cooked up beats for a gang of budding Memphis rappers including Moneybagg Yo and Blac Youngsta. JB moved to Raleigh -- a neighborhood in North Memphis -- when he was 14 and met Keith there. The two began working together and have since joined together for all of BlocBoy's current bangers, including "Rover" and "Look Alive."

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BlocBoy JB: Five Things to Know About the 'Look Alive' Memphis Rapper

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BlocBoy JB has been making waves on the net since 2017; the rapper's booming track "Rover" hit the net hard after being released on Jan. 8 this year, acquiring well over a million views in just a months time.

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To help diffuse chatter of his alleged feud with Young Dolph, Memphis rapper Yo Gotti recently shared a text message he sent to Dolph years ago.

While appearing on The Breakfast Club on Thursday (October 26), Yo Gotti allowed host Charlamagne Tha God to read the last text he sent to Dolph. The text dated back to August 24, 2012, and is filled with positivity, with Gotti offering wise words to his rapping counterpart.

"That's how you gotta approach this shit, homie. Just gotta stay down and make the right decisions and you can win big, my nigga. You in a good space in Memphis, but you gotta take that shit from there to the world. And it's gonna turn into money. I like your grind, my nigga. When I was in your position, none of them niggas who could help me did. Our city is fucked up, homie. And I'm trying to stop letting history repeat itself," a portion of Yo Gotti's text to Young Dolph read.

Gotti also answered a question about Dolph getting shot last month in Hollywood, and how he was ( inaccurately) reported as a person of interest following the incident. Another Gotti affiliate was arrested in connection with the shooting, but then later released without charge.

While speaking with The Breakfast Club, Gotti explained that being a person of interest is nothing new for him.

"I'm always on police radars where I'm from. And I'm Yo Gotti ... If something up here happens, random and outside. I'll probably be one of the people," he said.

Gotti, who says he has "no issue" with Young Dolph, adds that he isn't trying to use street cred as a marketing angle.

"That's the part as a hustler I be trying to stay away from because it mess with the money ... Every year I'm going up on a different platform," Yo Gotti said. "We going in a different space. You got some artists who want street credit. Like they market street credit. They take certain instances and turn it into marketing. They try to boost the sales. And you don't never see me speaking on that. I'm trying to stand away from it ... I'm pushing that away because that ain't me."

Gotti's new album, , drops Friday (October 27).

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Yo Gotti Has "No Issue" With Young Dolph

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To help diffuse chatter of his alleged feud with Young Dolph, Memphis rapper Yo Gotti recently shared a text message he sent to Dolph years ago. While appearing on The Breakfast Club on Thursday (October 26), Yo Gotti allowed host Charlamagne Tha God to read the last text he sent to Dolph.

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Thoroughly researched, thoroughly in tune with the culture, Hip Hop in America: A Regional Guide profiles two dozen specific hip hop scenes across the United States, showing how each place shaped a singular identity. Through its unique geographic perspective, it captures the astonishing diversity of a genre that has captivated the nation and the world.

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"Memphis," says point guard Mike Conley, "is a small town."

Born in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and raised in Indianapolis, the Grizzlies franchise player and floor general says Memphis suits him. "You can float under the radar when things aren't going well - and when things are going good, you still float under the radar." The fourth pick in the 2007 NBA draft, Conley has spent his entire NBA career with the team. "It's more intimate ... more, me," Conley says. "I'm low-key, low maintenance. You don't have as many people you reach ... as opposed to when you go to New York or something, [where] anything you do is blown up, whether it's good or bad. So it's cool," he says of his adopted hometown. "It fits me."

Conley likes the relative quiet, but ask any Memphian what they love about their hometown and you'll also hear a lot about hot spots like Gus' Fried Chicken. You'll hear about the chargrilled oysters at Pearl's Oyster House, Huey's for burgers, the scallops and grits at Itta Bena, and the blackened fish with cabbage at Soul Fish Cafe. Black-owned restaurants thrive during lunch rushes as folks pile into Southern Hands, Stein's Restaurant and The Crockpot for chop steak, boiled okra, chitlins, neck bones-traditional home cooking. The turnip greens at Blues City Cafe are a favorite with athletes, and with visitors to the Bluff City.

Beale Street isn't the first choice on a night of hanging out for most locals - though the soul music series SugaShackMemphis at the New Daisy Theater, and the nostalgic Paula Raiford's Disco in downtown Memphis are fun - but its musical history seeps into the souls of those who visit and those who were born here.

"Our guys here are a little more low-key, a lower radar, when it comes to just the lights, the notoriety." - Coach David Fizdale

"Beale Street" is really three blocks of shops, clubs, restaurants, galleries and theaters. Neon signs entice passersby. The street birthed blues legends such as Ruby Wilson and B.B. King. Louis Armstrong, Muddy Waters, Memphis Minnie and Albert King have performed there. The district is a national landmark - a melting pot of blues, jazz, rock, R&B and gospel. From the skilled and soulful strumming of the guitar, to the cupping of the harmonica by the man on the corner, to the street artist ready to sketch a tourist's profile.

On the surface, Memphis' small downtown is not always appealing to the eye, but it's a diamond in the rough. And every May, the Beale Street Music Festival brings thousands to the banks of the Mississippi River to see acts such as Katy Perry, Snoop Dogg, John Legend, Wiz Khalifa, Hall & Oates, the Dave Matthews Band and more.

All through downtown, you can catch the aroma of hickory smoke and sweet spices that leave a dent in your soul. And just to the east, there's more live music at club LOVE Memphis, where a church choir's lead singer is likely belting out an Aretha Franklin tune like she was summoned by the Queen of Soul herself. Privé Memphis, a restaurant and lounge opened by Memphis hip-hop hero Yo Gotti, takes up a corner of a well-known East Memphis community.

Memphis' dialect is unique. A lot of Memphis' vocabulary is compressed into one four-letter word. It's spoken by males, females, young, old, black or white: MANE. It denotes a pause between sentences. It's a verb or a noun, and was used profusely by actor and Empire star Terrence Howard in the 2005 Craig Brewer film Hustle & Flow about a pimp with hip-hop dreams. Legendary Memphis rap collective Three 6 Mafia wrote It's Hard out Here for a Pimp, which won the 2006 Academy Award for best original song. Memphis.

You'll hear about the chargrilled oysters at Pearl's, the blackened fish with cabbage and black-eyed peas at Soul Fish Cafe. The turnip greens at Blues City Cafe are a favorite with athletes.

The culture is not for everyone. Memphis is a city with a dark past that includes a deep history of racism and prejudice. In 1968, Memphis infamously brought Martin Luther King Jr. to town due to a long strike against unfair wages for sanitation workers. It's a place known for continuing to hold on to a local corporate "good ol' boy" mentality. A place where black leaders have fought and fight in the struggle for equality. Memphis is, of course, the place known for the assassination of King. Many - locals, black and white - would love to forget, or disassociate themselves from that fact, but can't escape it.

At the end of the day, Memphis sports functions as a small town. "People in the organization know people in the fan base, and everybody kind of knows each other," says Jason Wexler, the Grizzlies president of business operations. "That's kind of how Memphis works. You know you can't be disingenuous. We're a part of them. We're one of them. We build on each other. We're ... all growing together in this."

The Grizzlies are 20-14 under new head coach and Los Angeles native David Fizdale. The team finished seventh in the NBA's Western Conference in a tumultuous 2015-16 NBA season under former head coach Dave Joerger, who took over after Lionel Hollins was out in June 2013.

Hollins was the team's first black head coach since Sidney Lowe (2000-2002) and his contract was not renewed even after the great 2012-2013 NBA season. Before his departure, there was a full-on fan rally to keep Hollins. Hollins finished his time with the Grizzlies as the best and most successful Grizz coach since Hall of Famer Hubie Brown (this is not up for debate). Brown, now an analyst for ABC and ESPN, improved the team's record and led the Grizz to three-straight playoff appearances. Hollins went on to coach for the Brooklyn Nets, who let him go after two seasons.

"When I came to Memphis, in the beginning, I only had a one-year deal ... and God put it on my heart to uproot and come here. [He] says, 'Go to Memphis.' I sold my home, bought a house here, not knowing ... and while I'm here, Lowe is fired and they bring in Hubie Brown, so it was quite a risk to take, but Memphis always felt like home."

On any given night during an NBA season, fans show their love for the Memphis Grizzlies by filing into the FedExForum. Postseason games, as well as games against the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Clippers and Los Angeles Lakers, are likely to draw a sellout crowd, pulling a capacity of 18,111. In order to make the fan experience affordable to all, the front office approves promotions throughout the year such as StubHub tickets for $5.

"When you look around," Wexler says, "and you look at the geography, we have a real opportunity to become a regional franchise. That's a way we can be in our market. Which is a small market. Maybe we look a little bit like a larger market than otherwise."

FedExForum on game night starts with the aroma of Charlie Vergos' Rendezvous barbecue that meets attendees at the door. The scent of gourmet popcorn - buffalo ranch, dill pickle, candy-coated rainbow - from the building's lone black-owned food vendor iPop fills the air.

As fans file in with Grizz gear, painted faces and signs, the trash-talk begins. Enthusiasts have no mercy on the opposing team's players, coaches - or even the refs. They shout chants from "Whoop Dat Trick" to "You Suck." The diverse crowd has one goal in mind - winning. They are all in.

"The people in Memphis love their team, love the individual players, and make them a part of their family," Hollins says. "In New York, the fans were loud, rambunctious, and a lot of people came to games for different reasons, and as soon as the team would lose then there wouldn't be any fan base, so it was different in that they weren't loyal."

Loyal for real: Fans not in the arena are watching at bars nearby, or having game-night house parties. The Rec Room, a new location in Midtown Memphis, has become a popular spot for viewing with its 20-foot screens, six rented "living rooms," arcade and hip patio. The living rooms recreate a home setting, with chairs and sofas, and accommodate about 12 people. The spaces are available in one-hour increments and come complete with remote controls. There's more, though.

"The most unique place to watch a Grizzlies game is at the BarBQue Fest during the annual Memphis in May festivities," says Sports 56 radio host Kevin Cerrito. "Tents are set up on the river and decorated in Grizzlies paraphernalia, you smell barbecue in the air. It's playoff season, and if you're lucky that's one or two games per year. It's something unique to Memphis."

"The fans are into it. It's not as big as other big cities, but it's the same love and heart." - Zach Randolph

"The way we've completely integrated ourselves into the market, it's unique," Wexler says. Among his responsibilities - ticket sales, arena and general operations, partnerships, marketing and broadcast - is community investment. "There's only a couple of teams in pro sports that have done the same thing - where the fan base, the team and the city all share an identity ... They work together and build on each other to make a bigger whole than some of its parts." Wexler says the team is in a good place with the city and its fans.

"The city's positive self-esteem and the franchise's positive self-esteem are interwoven," he says. "When you amplify that with the great grind culture that captures both the team and the city, there's really not a lot different you'd want to do." He notes that a lot of franchises are sitting on a lot of history. "We're just starting our 16th season. We're seeing those first groups of generational fans - those kids who were 10 years old when the Grizzlies arrived, they're now 26 and they bleed Grizzlies blue."

Wexler also says that the main ingredient to a successful culture in the Grizzlies franchise is honesty. "Anybody new who comes in just knows that they've gotta follow that lead. Right? This is how we do it in Memphis. Are they going to be a part of that? ... With our focus on mentoring and so much of what we do to engage in the community. [There's] a really good dialogue between the players, the organization and the community that I think lifts everybody up a little bit."

They shout chants from "Whoop Dat Trick" to "You Suck." The diverse crowd has one goal in mind - winning. They are all in.

Strickland notes that the Grizzlies continue to be active in the community through the Grizzlies Foundation. "They're kind of the umbrella organization for mentoring, [and] mentoring is a huge benefit for Memphis," he says. The foundation acknowledges that 80,000 children [of all races] live below the poverty line. "We need to give young people something productive to do when they're not in school. Mentoring is the perfect thing to provide. That's not all the Grizzlies Foundation does, but that's one of the things. They're engaged in the community, which you would expect them to be, but they are living up to that commitment." There is also a big connection between the players and the city of Memphis.

"What we call the Big Four, which is Tony [Allen] and Mike [Conley] and Marc [Gasol] and Zach [Randolph], have been kind of the heart of the team for the last few years," Strickland says. "They have a real connection with the Memphians. As a sign of that connection ... the Grizzlies in their motto have captured the essence of Memphis. We are a grit and grind city. I think that perfectly encapsulates both the Grizzlies and our city. They are not super flashy. They have to hustle every single game, and that's what Memphis is. We have to grit and grind to success."

Wexler agrees that the team has a strong player culture. "From Mike, Mark, Zack and Tony, the core four guys ... [fans] know we care about our town. They see the energy, effort and commitment that we put into our community engagement. Our foundation. Which is really second to none in professional sports. How we impact our city. We understand where the opportunities and limitations are. It's a good open dialogue."

"There's only a couple of teams in pro sports where the fan base, the team and the city all share an identity."

Grizzlies coach Fizdale made his way from Miami to Memphis and says the main difference is the non-celebrity mentality of the market. "Whatever went wrong in Miami, whether it was LeBron [James] bumping shoulders or DWade [Dwyane Wade] having a fit or anything like that, it turned into something more than it would here," Fizdale says. "Our guys here are a little more low-key, a lower radar, when it comes to just the lights, the notoriety. But in both places, there's a high level of talent. We have high level talent here. The fans that are here are more college-like. College basketball. It's fun. Here is like basketball junkies. Both places have great qualities."

But Memphis has barbecue. An ongoing debate that Memphians have is where to find the best. By far, it's someone's smoke-filled backyard on a summer day, or even a cold December morning. The weather won't ever stop pits from being fired up. This is where Elvis' neighborhood, Whitehaven, is mostly black, and being redeveloped. This is where MANE, and phrases such as "Memphis vs. Errrbody" are printed on popular T-shirts - a testament to a city of people that has a chip on its shoulder.

Zach Randolph has been with the team since 2009, and quickly he became a fan favorite. He has often declared Memphis as a team that gave him another chance in the league. "It's a great thing," Randolph says of the basketball culture in the city. "The fans are into it. It's not as big as other big cities, but it's the same love and heart. Everything," he says, "goes into it."

Kelley Evans is a general editor at The Undefeated. She is a food passionista, helicopter mom and an unapologetic southerner who spends every night with the cast of The Young and the Restless by way of her couch.

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The Grizzlies' - and Memphis' - grit and grind

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"Memphis," says point guard Mike Conley, "is a small town." Born in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and raised in Indianapolis, the Grizzlies franchise player and floor general says Memphis suits him. "You can float under the radar when things aren't going well - and when things are going good, you still float under the radar."

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Top Facts You've Always Wanted to Know about Celebrities and Famous People

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✎ Family, Mom, Dad, Wife & Husbands, kids

Father: Demario's father is not known.

Mother: Demario's mother's name is not available.

Siblings: Demario is not known to have siblings.

Wives and kids: Demario is not married. He has admitted that he has seven children that were born by different women. He does not reveal the names of the kids and their mothers.

✎ Boyfriends & Girlfriends, Relationship

Sexual orientation: straight.

Demario does not give the names of his current girlfriends.

✎ Moneybagg Yo Money, Net Worth

His net worth is estimated at $ 3 Million.

✎ Houses & Cars

Place of living: Demario resides in Los Angeles.

Cars: The brand of Demario's car is BMW.

★ Watch HERE: TOP 100 Most Popular Stars ➤

✎ Misc Questions
Has the performer got any awards?
He got 'Memphis Hip Hop Award' in 2016. It was received in the nomination 'Mixtape of the Year'.
With what recording company does he work?
The first recording company with which he had a deal was called 'Collective Music Group'.
With what performers has he collaborated?
He has worked together with Quavo, Yo Gotti, Youngboy Never Broke Again and other performers of hip-hop.
Does the singer have any problems with the law?
He has been charged for gun and drug keeping and shooting.
Does he devote his songs to any close people?
Demario does not do it demonstratively, but the public knows a song where he sings about his kids.

✎ Interesting and Fun Facts:

He is fond of expensive cars and jewelry.

His body is tattooed.

He likes red wine.

He enjoys wearing a bandana.

He usually wears denim.

His hair is short.

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Father: Demario's father is not known. Mother: Demario's mother's name is not available. Siblings: Demario is not known to have siblings. Wives and kids: Demario is not married. He has admitted that he has seven children that were born by different women. He does not reveal the names of the kids and their mothers.

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During the reporting of our story about the legacy of Comin' Out Hard in Memphis rap, we spent time in the city with MJG, Young Dolph and Drumma Boy. We met Yo Gotti in New York and got Eightball in a studio in Atlanta. We didn't have enough time to talk to everybody who's made Memphis rap what it is, like Gangsta Boo, or DJ Paul, Juicy J, Project Pat, or even Gangsta Pat. And we couldn't fit everything the folks we did speak to had to say in the 7-minute radio piece, or the longer web version. So here's the best of what was left on the cutting room floor.
MJG's Favorite Lyric Off Comin' Out Hard
I can sit here all day long and name you 30 favorites but there's one that sticks in my head. That's the one where I say "1, 2, 3 points I gotta get across / 1. don't 2. make me 3. go off." It rings in my head for a couple of different reasons.

It's been a few artists that have used that line for a hook, and back in the day before Eazy-E passed away he told Tony Draper on the phone when he heard that line - because of that he said, "That cat dere cold." He said, "He good right there. You need to keep him."
Eightball On The Reaction To Comin' Out Hard
It was a stupid buzz in Memphis. Draper being who he was, and people, the word of mouth, you know what I mean, that street buzz. But other places like Houston and - I want to say Dallas was one of those places where it instantly was good due to a lot from Greg Street. He played us on the radio a whole lot down there, the singles from Comin' Out Hard.
Eightball On Touring
In a rental car with me, MJG and Draper and a trunk full of product. That was our tour. We was young and thuggin'. Draper be driving, we be on the highway, he doing 100, me and MJ rolling up, smoking, you know what I'm saying. That's what it was. We'd go coast to coast like that, getting speeding tickets and hiding the weed. That was a good year.
Eightball On His Generation Of Musicians
We come from a different era where we had a different blend of music that, that I guess was the seed of our music. Kids now, what you hear from them is a blend of - to me - you hear a lot of soul but you hear more of what we done. And when I say "we," I mean that time in hip-hop. Not just me and MJG, but the early Master Ps and Cash Moneys. The Snoops and stuff like that, that the kids of now that's doing music, they parents came up on. Because we was the music that they parents was cleaning up the house to.
Yo Gotti On The Civil Rights Movement In Memphis Music
It's part of the struggle, knowing that those types of civil rights things took place down there. They got the hotel down there that a lot of people come visit. I actually shot part of my album cover at that hotel for this album, it was part of the whole theme of the I Am album. But I most definitely think that the Civil Rights Movement have a lot to do with the pain down there because a lot of our grandparents - things like that is very familiar. They was there during the marches and things like that so we grow up - typical you grow up at your grandmama's house so you hear about it, you see the pictures and you be very familiar with their whole struggle.
Yo Gotti On Mentorship In Memphis Rap
When Three 6 and Eightball and MJG was doing they thing, Eightball and MJG was in Houston, Three 6 was, I think, in L.A. or something, so an artist like me that was on the come up, they ain't like - I really never seen them, either one of them. But the first time I got to the point where my music was getting hotter, when I reached out to Eightball to do a record, he reached right back out to me and it kind of like surprised me because I'm like, "Oh, he hit me right back!" I reached out to several other artists before then who weren't as big as Eightball and didn't get a response back. Trying to reach out to Eightball was a long shot and then he's the one that hit me right back: "What you need? Whatever you need is cool." That threw me for a whole loop. I sent him a record, which was " Gangsta Party," he put a verse on it, sent it right back to me. I still remember the night I got the verse back. I was like, geeked, I couldn't believe he had done it. And it wasn't about no money or nothing like he just done it for me.

I tell Don Trip and all them the same thing. I feel like what I already experienced and know - what he ain't experienced yet, it don't really hurt me, or I don't lose nothing by telling him that game. I can prevent him from going a route that I've already made a mistake doing.

I think the negative image [of Memphis musicians] is the education of the music business. I think Three 6 Mafia is probably very smart on the business - if you do your research on they business structure of finances and how they made money, they made a lot of money. You've got me who come along, who's very business-oriented. So how you handle the business with it, we know that but it ain't really public.

If you go to Atlanta, what I noticed is the up-and-coming artists, they know the business, they know the steps, they know - even if the record ain't super great, they know how to get it mixed right, mastered right. Like, that's public information, everybody know who the best mixer is, who the best master is or how deals supposed to go, who's the best lawyers. Everybody know that in Atlanta because there's so many artists there. I don't know how it's getting out but everybody know it. Memphis, don't nobody know nothing.
Drumma Boy On Memphis' Reputation
I think Memphis is underrated. People was saying Memphis was gone blow up before Atlanta and then Atlanta just took off. Memphis is definitely overdue. There's just enormous amounts of talent and history in the city of Memphis and I think it's just a matter of time.
Drumma Boy On Musicians From Memphis Leaving The City
I physically left but my presence is always in Memphis, I've always had residencies and I still have residencies. It's more like growing up with Yo Gotti, coming up with 8ball, MJG, Three 6 Mafia - I worked with everybody I could in the city. So the next step was to elevate to another city where there are way more people to work with.

Once you done worked with everybody in the city, it's like, "OK I'm bored as f--, nobody else to get money from, let me go to Atlanta." And Pastor Troy called me out the blue, so really I left to go get some money. Went and got $8,000, did two tracks for Pastor Troy and one of the songs blew up in the strip club. You still sitting in one city that means you ain't blown up yet. If you still sitting in one city you're not the celebrity you think you are
Young Dolph On The Influence Of Memphis And The South
Atlanta got the rap game on lock, but if you go to all the artists that's top artists from Atlanta they gone tell you how much Memphis music influenced them. From my partner 2 Chainz, to T.I., to Young Jeezy, a lot of them Atlanta artists they gone tell you "I grew up on that Memphis music." Memphis got a big part to play in the hip-hop scene just because the hip-hop scene really is - like, Atlanta is taking over. It's going crazy in the south, that's where the music at right now.

Like '97, '98, '99 it was a East Coast thing. You had the Ruff Ryders, you had Roc-A-Fella, you had all the East Coast and they was doing they thing. So once it shifted and came down south you got them cats that's still in New York, the ones that's doing they thing, they grinding, the major artists, they couldn't just let it go. And they respected the game and they like, "Hey I'm fin get ready to come down south." They started coming down south to Miami, Atlanta. Getting beats from southern producers and all that. It's just really adapting to the game. They adapted to it.

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We couldn't fit everything into Thursday's story about the legacy of Comin Out Hard, so here are some extras, including Eightball on touring in a rental car, MJG on Eazy-E and Yo Gotti on mentorship in the Memphis rap scene.

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Memphis Hip Hop | Entries | Tennessee Encyclopedia

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Hip hop remains an important aspect of Memphis culture. Rather than representing an anomaly within the long history of the city's musical development, this music is an outgrowth of a varied and dynamic heritage. It is also fits within a larger post-civil rights trend in which African Americans are re-claiming their southern identities through art, music, and culture.

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Torii MacAdams on the influential and underrated artists who have had a lasting impact on the city's dynamic scene.

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Memphis can feel pretty barren to the uninitiated. Locals tend to herd visitors instinctively, if not to Graceland then to its eerily under-populated downtown, a small, riverside metropolitan strip filled with hotels and barbecue restaurants. An ominous 300-foot tall onyx pyramid sits at its northern border. Once a sports arena, it's recently been leased by Bass Pro Fishing Shops. At the core of downtown Memphis sits the famed Beale Street and, on it, a stretch of unapologetically tacky gift shops where everything from door frames to toilet seats have musical notes on them. Here European tourists are cordoned off to celebrate Elvis, B.B. King and the absence of open container laws. For a city where musical heritage is the largest cultural attraction, its institutions seem almost willfully oblivious to its rap history. "Memphis is a dark city," says Memphis rap icon and lifelong resident Playa Fly. "There's always been a dark cloud over the city. They killed the symbol for peace here." The 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Memphis' Lorraine Motel forever reverberates in the city, perhaps nowhere more visibly than in its musical world. The subsequent racial tensions proved to be the catalyst for the fall of the once peacefully integrated Stax Records soul music empire and, by extension, lead to the dissolution of Memphis as a recording hub for black music.

The clubs remained, of course, but when the '80s rolled around, those discos were consumed by hip-hop, as they were everywhere else. Like much of the south, Memphis gravitated to the trunk rattling sound of 808-driven hip-hop, handed down from the genre's early pioneers in New York. The clubs of the city turned that thump towards aggression, scoring the riotous stomp dance of choice-buck jumpin', which later became known as jookin or gangsta walkin'. Local DJs like Spanish Fly, DJ Squeeky, Juicy J and DJ Paul spread their sound in the clubs, but also through a homebrew cassette culture. Their numbered volumes, usually labeled sparsely with typewriter fonts on plain white stickers, sold through car stereo shops and exchanged hands through bootleg streams. (Those tapes are now nearly extinct, mostly exchanging hands among European collectors who, thankfully, have been kind enough to post many of them to YouTube.) In the '90s, Memphis' grim sound grew even darker as drum machine skeletons were given flesh by way of slowed and menacing vocal samples and John Carpenter horror score samples. Rappers chanted penetratingly and honed machete-sharp double time flows, using both to exaggerate the boasts of classic gangsta rap into gruesome tales of murder and mayhem. Some, most notably Memphis mainstays Three 6 Mafia, pushed those dark themes to their logical extreme and embraced on-record Satanism.

As extreme as they may have been, some rap stars ultimately built careers on the backs of those early tapes. Three 6 Mafia turned their devilish rage to a more focused and nondenominational chant rap, Eightball & MJG took Memphis to more lyrical and introspective ends and Tela smoothed it all out for a strip club appeal. While these acts took over the mainstream, dozens of lesser known but no less revered rappers like Playa Fly, Kingpin Skinny Pimp, Gangsta Pat and Tommy Wright III kept to the core formula and cultivated their following locally.

Today those names still ring out in the Memphis streets, though the sound they pioneered is less common. When speaking on their personal preferences, local rappers are more likely to mention national stars like Lil Boosie, Rick Ross, Jadakiss or Wale and the watered down rap styles reflect that. "We stopped having our own sound," says rapper Miscellaneous, whose song "Memphis Walk" became a local hit in 2006. "We're too busy trying to sound like somewhere else when somewhere else is trying to sound like us." These days it's not tape hiss drowning out the Memphis rap aesthetic but the din of national homogeneity. Its producers are beholden to whatever the non-specific Southern rap template of the moment might be. But even disconnected from its lineage the city's talent does its best to trudge on.

Raised in North Memphis' Ridgecrest Apartments, Yo Gotti cut his teeth as a teen in the tape age. "I remember the first time I seen Skinny Pimp in a drop top 5.0," he says. "That was the first time I seen an artist with my own eyes and it looked like he had money. It made me say, Aw yeah, I'm gonna be a rapper." Fifteen years after he began his career, Gotti's the biggest rap star in Memphis as well as the city's most visible export, a position he seems to have attained by little more than sheer tenacity. Though it's been five years since he released a proper album, his buzz continues to heighten organically, through the six-and-a-half volume Cocaine Muzik mixtape series, through high profile cameos with Gucci Mane as well as an unexpected number of his own hits.

Gotti's voice is definitively Memphian, like many locals he tends to drop rolling Rs into certain words-Cocaine Merrsic. But his aesthetic choices lean broader, often bending to the will of his collaborators. As the city's biggest star, though, he remains a proud ambassador. When one local radio station advertises his music they drop his name as "Memphis Yo Gotti." He's the only Memphis rapper whose name or music I heard on the radio over the course of a weekend in the city. As one of the last men standing from his era, he wonders where it might've all gone wrong.

"I think when some of them people had their spot they didn't allow it to grow," Gotti says. "They done what they done and they done that good but they didn't grow." He's taking corrective measures, doing his part to put his city on the national radar, starting with his protégé, South Memphis' Zed Zilla, no stranger to a slow boil himself. Zilla's been at it for nearly a decade, producing mix CDs that showcase his elastic flow to lukewarm fanfare. "He saw the grind and respected it," says Zilla, who's banking on the Gotti cosign as being the next step in his crawl out of the underground rap slum. "For him to keep his ears to the street, to reach out and help an artist from a whole other side of the town, that was major." "I ain't got to do nothing," Gotti continues. "Nobody helped me. I mean, the city helped me, the fans helped me, the radio stations helped me. But no artist or nothing helped me coming up so I could be on that. But I love the city that much and I feel like I owe it to the people around here." Zed Zilla represents just one sliver of the many rappers trying to break out of the city. But Gotti can't bring them all with him. So the everyday hustle continues for burgeoning talents, men with names like Young Dolph and OG Boo Dirty, whose lives revolve around studio time and small venues, hoping to replicate what Gotti did on their own time.

Just a few miles east of the Mississippi, nestled between a T-Mobile store and a home offering psychic readings, sits Traphouse Studios, one of the city's breeding grounds for new talent, though you wouldn't know it from the outside. It's literally just a large residential house, its white exterior withered and chipping like many in Memphis. An intensely secure front gate is the only indication that the building is even occupied. In fact, it's so barren and protected that it'd be easy to mistake it for an actual trap house, but its inhabitants only slang dope music inside its doors. Signs posted in the house read: No weed smoking, no firearms, no soliciting, no bullshitting.

The main recording studio downstairs has all the fittings of its professional analog-mixing board, leather couches, flat screen, soda machine-while each room upstairs has been gutted and lined in bare bones fashion, with either a slipshod vocal booth or a simple Pro Tools rig. These makeshift setups recall the slapdash home studios of the 2005 Terrence Howard-fronted film Hustle & Flow, which offered a close-but-not-quite perspective on the Memphis rap scene and now elicits a chuckle from most locals.

Traphouse's tour guide is No Soda, a heavyset dude with a mouthful of gold and a dopey grin. When not rapping/growling about his grind, No Soda works with his uncle installing office spaces in hospitals and hopes to open his own installation business so he can finance his record label. "Other than that I'm here doing this, doing the music," he says. "The studio don't close."

No Soda ostensibly has come to Traphouse to record but it's quickly becoming a social gathering, thanks in part to the natural ebb and flow of the studio, but also to Soda emptying his phonebook excitedly in the presence of an out-of-town reporter. The topic of discussion leans towards the scene's present stalemate, attributed to many of the same woes present in most local rap scenes: radio stations failing to spin local records, too much thematic focus on aggression, murder and the dope game and an overall lack of unity. Miscellaneous reminisces about the glory days of the city, bemoaning its now fractured legacy like a sage. "This is the only city I know where we let our legends die," he says. "If you go to the club with us tonight you won't hear [Three 6 Mafia's] 'Tear The Club Up,' you're not gonna hear Playa Fly, you're not gonna hear Project Pat's 'Gorilla Pimp.' You're gonna hear Gucci Mane. We let it die here."

More often than not, that somewhere else is Southern rap industry hub Atlanta, Georgia. While Memphis' stars were smoothing their rougher edges for mainstream acceptance around the turn of the 21st century Atlanta artists like Lil Jon and Pastor Troy were channeling Memphis energy, putting their own twists on it and rechristening it as crunk. "Crunk came from Memphis, Tennessee," explains expat hitmaker Drumma Boy. "Lil Jon is on the record as saying that."

Though Atlanta's formal crunk movement has long since past, its influence, and by extension Memphis', still trickles down. More than one Memphis producer (Drumma, Jazze Pha) has jumpstarted his career by relocating to Atlanta, while others make the trip frequently. "The only difference between here and Atlanta is that in Atlanta more business gets handled," says Gotti. "Look at Drumma Boy now, he wouldn't have been able to produce [national records] in Memphis. You have to be in the studio with some of these people to even play this music for them." Not everything that Drumma does with his Atlanta collaborators bears an explicit Memphis influence but it does pop up frequently, particularly in his work with Gucci Mane, whose rap style owes at least a bit of gratitude to Memphians like Playa Fly and Project Pat.

Virginian Lex Luger, currently hip-hop's most influential producer, has repackaged the violent energy and the horror-film-pitch of Memphis' cassette era, using it to bring Gucci's aggressive understudy Waka Flocka Flame to the mainstream, before eventually selling it to pop stars like Rick Ross, Jay-Z and Kanye West. Within the current framework of hip-hop, Luger's style sits closest to the legacy of gangsta rap. If a drug dealer (real or imaginary) makes a record anywhere in America today, odds are high that it owes something to Luger, and even higher that he's completely unaware of what that sound also owes to Memphis.

While this is partially the fault of a lack of local cohesion, in a wired world, aesthetics are no longer explicitly tied to place. "That's how you want your sound to be-global," says Yo Gotti, and maybe to think otherwise is nothing but sentimental idealism. As the internet disperses styles at a rapid pace and radio playlists become increasingly streamlined nationally, the natural order is becoming a blur. This is advantageous for cities like Atlanta, which now absorb and turn over styles quickly, but it doesn't favor less thriving regions. Where a city like Memphis was once able to bully its way into the spotlight by offering a unique product, today the industry simply distills the most potent fragments and spreads them around, leaving artists with few choices, slow grinding like Gotti or simply waiting for someone with enough pull to lift you up to take notice.

That's what's happening to Don Trip. A few years ago he was yet another underground rapper, flooding YouTube with videos of him in the vocal booth at his home studio, which bears the same makeshift vibe of Traphouse's upstairs. The biggest of these proved to be "Letter to My Son" a hook-less and heartfelt (if deeply uncivil) custody battle ballad that ricochets its aim from son to mother. The video's viral success caught the eyes of producers Cool & Dre who helped Trip land an Interscope deal through their Epidemic imprint. Now "Letter" is getting the label's full push, along with an added chorus from Atlanta legend Cee-Lo. Trip falls firmly alongside Gotti in the globalist camp, citing New York rappers like Jay-Z and The Lox as his main inspiration.

"My music just sound like music." Trip explains matter-of-factly, carefully avoiding any regional bias. "If you hear it you'd say I'm from the south, of course, due to the accent, but other than that you couldn't pinpoint a place and say this is where he from." And yet Memphis is where it resonates at the moment. If Yo Gotti is the king of the city, then Trip is its incumbent prince. With that royalty comes a certain obligation to the surrounding populace. Trip has been hitting the modern day chitlin' circuit hard as of late. Earlier in the week he played clubs in the surrounding Tennessee cities of Jackson and Murfreesboro, and earlier in the day he played an on-campus show at University of Arkansas in Pine Bluff. At the moment, Trip's about 30 minutes south of Memphis-straight down Route 61, The Blues Highway-at a small venue in Tunica, Mississippi. Tunica boasts a population of 1,300 and, at night, looks like nothing more than a wide sprawl of casinos and billboards.

He pulls into the parking lot shortly after midnight to receive the usual rap show assemblage (underdressed females, over-posturing males) milling about a crowded and awkwardly arranged spread of cars, many of which outshine the drab exterior of the venue by a considerable margin. Three kids who swear that they're of age but don't look a day older than 16 sit on the hood of one and shout, "Don Trip! Lemme get an autograph, a picture or a record deal!" nonspecifically in the direction of a van that, to their knowledge, may or may not actually contain Don Trip. A member of Trip's four-car deep entourage laughingly brushes them off with reason: "He's still trying to get on himself."

The inside of the club appears to betray that logic, though as The All New After 5 Sports Bar and Grill is packed tightly with a couple hundred fans who could very well turn combustible quickly. Word has come down from above that the warm-up DJ blew out the venue's only set of speakers. While management runs around frantically to figure out exactly how to solve this problem Trip waits backstage-literally. Rather than place him in a green room they have simply cornered off a VIP towards the rear of the stage itself, surrounding a small, booze-stacked table with couches and posse and creating something of a warped Last Supper scenario. Two of the more attractive women in the crowd are either invited or take it upon themselves to join Trip on stage but he appears to interact with them very little. Instead he sits silently, looking alternately focused and frustrated. Part of this is his natural alignment; his deep-set eyes and sharply arched brows suggest a constant intensity that might not always be present.

Trip's management, too, tries to remedy the speaker situation by offering to instead turn the event into a meet and greet, but before they can organize such an effort, the club's security produces a new set of speakers and parts the crowd to install them. After some negotiation, Trip finally takes the stage-the front of the stage-at about 1:30AM. There he runs through a 40-minute set of artfully executed songs about gunplay. His is music designed to induce riots and fortunately only comes close to its intended effect on this night. But it's Trip's emotional turmoil, not his physical threats that gets the biggest response as "Letter To My Son" builds to its growled thesis statement: Stupid bitch, I just want to see my child. The crowd devours it.

If Trip does manage to cross over, it's hard to say what, if anything, his success would mean for Memphis. Gotti's has built a sense of pride, but not of unity. Trip has potential to be an even bigger artist, but without a collective voice in Memphis, ultimately his stardom will be his alone and today the same goes for any artist who might be so lucky as to emerge from a second-city scene. Memphis may see movement in its Richter scale, but without that unity, those spikes will remain few and far between.

While Trip might break out, he has no plans to leave the area anytime soon. He's a self-professed homebody and his allegiance to his city is one of simple comfort, if not roaring enthusiasm. "I just like Memphis. I like the fact that it's spacious. Like right now we can stand in the parking lot, at a lot of spots there ain't no parking lot. You gotta park on the streets. I ain't too into that," he says. "I travel all the time but I don't think I need to move, Memphis is home. Miami is exciting, LA is exciting but no other place is home but home."

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Memphis can feel pretty barren to the uninitiated. Locals tend to herd visitors instinctively, if not to Graceland then to its eerily under-populated downtown, a small, riverside metropolitan strip filled with hotels and barbecue restaurants. An ominous 300-foot tall onyx pyramid sits at its northern border.

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Who is Juicy J? Everything You Need to Know

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Juicy J (Jordan Michael Houston) is an American rapper, songwriter and a music producer. Let's take a look at his family, personal life, career, achievements and some fun facts.

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December 20, 2013 started as any other lazy Saturday. I rolled out of my bed at around 11:00, stumbled to my laptop and fired it up. Hip Hop news on the weekends is slower. Artists don't typically drop material on Saturdays or Sundays, and oftentimes it's a clean up period in preparation for the week ahead.

I was scrolling through my Facebook and Twitter timelines in search of news pitches and found something totally unexpected-Gangsta Boo tweeted that Lord Infamous had passed away. I sat there for about a minute and kept denying to myself that such news was even possible. Lord is and was one of my favorite rappers.

Rest in Peace Lord Infamous please respect the family and dear friends during this tragedy.

- Lola aka Boo (@GangstaBooQOM) December 21, 2013

Obviously, a Three 6 Mafia member tweeting that one of their own is deceased is news whether it's true or not. I attempted to find other reports about the possibly tragic story but at the time, but there weren't any. After a few e-mails and phone calls, I talked directly to Three 6's publicist, and she confirmed that in fact, he had died. I quickly wrote up a story of everything we knew as fact and posted it. It was after that I really caught something interesting coming across my social media feeds.

Most of the Rap world paid their condolences to Lord Infamous and his family though the Internet, but it was a batch of young rappers that showed an immense amount of loss and sorrow. In particular, the timelines of Miami rappers SpaceGhostPurrp and Denzel Curry were littered with mentions of the late Triple 6 member's influence and contained retweets of those remembering Lord Infamous. It's actually no surprise these two were doing this. Raider Klan, among others, is at the forefront of a Memphis horrorcore sound resurgence in Hip Hop music today. I talked to DJ Paul just hours after Lord died to confirm his cause of death and talked to him about numerous other topics including the newer crop of artists that are obviously inspired by the Three 6 of yesteryear.

"People just love that sound because Three 6 Mafia was before they time," Paul said when asked about newer artists taking inspiration from their music. "That's just another reason why I feel the reviews were so great for Da Mafia Six [ 6ix Commandments] because the new kids these days never really heard nothing that sounded like that before. So after they heard it, they go, 'What the hell is this? This sound good.'"

Mystic Stylez: The Intrigue Of Early Underground Memphis
"For chill this shit is cool to rap about but see to me it ain't no fun when it's real." -DJ Paul, "Sweet Robbery"
The haunting, lo-fi and phonky sounds of early '90s Memphis horrorcore Hip Hop are distinct. Initial Backyard Posse and Tear Da Club Up Thugs mixtapes set the tone for a Hip Hop sub-genre that had little precedent but a lasting impact. It really reminds me of watching "Unsolved Mysteries" as a kid and being intrigued by the creepy music, vivid reenactments and haunting voice of Robert Stack as host. When it comes to Three 6 Mafia and their music, it's the kind of scary that isn't necessarily about the creepy shit they did to you in their lyrics, but the possibility of it happening.

A lot of today's crunk and trap music finds some of its earliest roots in Triple 6 melodies and drum kits. Even with this, a true modern tribute-paying to the very specific Memphis horrorcore sound and its lyrical contents had been lacking until recently. Artists like Purrp and Curry pay tribute to early Southern horrorcore.

"One thing I can say about Memphis is that their underground scene definitely inspired my Rap career-especially growing up as a child, 'cause we had the same type of scene down here in Miami," SpaceGhostPurrp said in a recent interview with HipHopDX. "People know Miami as Uncle Luke and shit, but niggas was on that same shit... Memphis took it to a whole 'nother level, and nobody was fucking with Memphis back in the day. It had that sound that nobody could not fuck with."

"It influenced me to a degree to where I wanted to rap like that. That's how much that shit influenced me," Denzel Curry told DX. "There's all types of flows with that style, and then adding the fact that Southern niggas know how to flip already, that's just more fuel to the fire. And that's why it's so raw to me. That's why that whole Memphis shit was so raw to me."

North Memphis Representin': Differentiating Genres Of Horrorcore Rap
"From on my streets / With all only peeps / I used to scratch / And throw down beats." -Juicy J, "Stomp"
Let's not confuse Memphis horrorcore Hip Hop with the rest of the genre. While Three 6 Mafia and its associates were some of the first to do it, the genre has had a recent presence in today (and yesterday's) underground scene. Artists like Necro, Brotha Lynch Hung, Gravediggaz, Esham and even Tech N9ne, to some extent, have lyrics that are eerie and dark, but in a different way.

While both Three 6 Mafia and artists like Gravediggaz share the label of "horrorcore," they are quite different. The lo-fi, hood/gangsta and explicitly occult-based aura of '90s M-Town differs from more death and technically lyric-based raps of artists that typically reside in New York (Necro, Gravediggaz, Kool Keith, Ill Bill, etc) where intricate rhyme patterns traditionally have reigned supreme.

My argument is not that horrorcore as a genre has made its return to the forefront of youngster's interest. Traditional Memphis horrorcore is what a lot of people have rediscovered, and it has now heavily influenced those who were only adolescents and, in some cases, not even born when it was originally released.

In Da Game: Sonic Application Among Today's Crop

"I'ma keep bringin' the phonk / Nigga, I'ma keep bringin' the phonk / And you niggas can't stop me." -SpaceGhostPurrp, "Bringing Tha Phonk"

Seminal examples of this new wave of Memphis-inspired Hip Hop can be found in SpaceGhostPurrp's debut mixtape, Blacklvnd Radio 66.6 and subsequent first album, Mysterious Phonk: The Chronicles of SpaceGhostPurrp. His use of Mortal Kombat samples and dark imagery through out Blacklvnd Radio have you time traveling back to the haunting sounds of "Sweet Robbery," from Three 6 Mafia's Mystic Stylez, perhaps the most foreboding use of Son of Sam-influenced horror ever recorded in Hip Hop music. The demonic laughs from Koopsta Knicca's "Robbers" are similarly re-created in Purrp's "Get Ya Head Bust" and "Possessed," among others.

Lil Ugly Mane's Mista Thug Isolation also calls from old Memphis. "Twistin" (not coincidentally featuring Denzel Curry) insinuates violent retaliation and even references that Curry purchased Triple 6's greatest hits. Denzel Curry's own work features numerous dark elements that could be construed as horror-inspired. His debut album, Nostalgic 64, released late last year, not only features songs exemplifying the eerie sounds of early Memphis horricore, but Denzel often raps very much like the "tongue twisting" flow introduced by Lord Infamous in the early '90s. Songs like "Mystical Virus Pt. 3" and "Dark & Violent" reveal situations where demons take over the main character he creates.

Even artists with looser affiliations to old Memphis have used its sound at one point or another. The sonics of A$AP Mob's song "Told Ya" is carried by a sample of Three 6's "Playa Hataz." Similarly, their Bay-Area companions Main Attrakionz' track "Summa Time" features noticeable instrumental use via "Da Summa," again from Mystic Stylez.

The horrorcore influence isn't exclusive to just the music itself. Visual aspects are also plentiful. Haleek Maul's video for "88" is a perfect millennial example of demonic Rap carried out in a more non-traditional way, while Raider Klan's Amber London's "Servin' Feindz" uses filters to look straight out of 1994. One could swear they were watching an early Gangsta Boo video. Even A$AP Rocky is seen sprinkling powder over a pentagram in his 2012 visual for "Wassup."

Live By Yo Rep: Three 6 Mafia's Return To Horrorcore
"Remember in 1995 / I was so live, the city was all mine / Only black girl with a all white clique / Put your snake ass down on some brand new shit." -Gangsta Boo, "Remember"
Even Three 6 Mafia's latest subgroup's mixtape screams of their yesteryear sound. Da Mafia 6ix's 6ix Commandments features the sinister, horrific characteristics one could easily find on some of Three 6's earliest work. Tracks like "Murder On My Mind" and "Beacon N Blender" feature similar attributes to songs on Mystic Stylez or The End.

It's no coincidence the tape dedicates some of its song titles to those from previous projects. "Stash Pot" and particularly "Break Da Law" not only share the titles of their predecessors but also duplicate samples and lyrics.

In a November 2013 interview with HipHopDX, DJ Paul said Da Mafia 6ix wanted to return to their old sound in describing their then upcoming mixtape release, consciously targeting the aura of their first two group albums as Three 6 Mafia.

"The thing that makes it distinctive is that it ain't gonna be different," he said. "We went straight back to hard, hardcore shit. It's harder and crazier than Mystic Stylez and Da End. It's just a crazy-ass mixtape... The original fans will be happy. That's the only people we do it for anyway. I don't give a fuck about anybody else who is into some other shit."

Features on the album also reach back to the past. Bypassing an extension to rapping guests of higher current-day stature, the tape includes only those who make sonic sense. Lil Wyte, Project Pat, La Chat and Kingpin Skinny Pimp all make a return as Mafia affiliates. SpaceGhostPurrp also makes a rapping contribution on the project. Purrp says '90s Memphis Rap's influence on him as a kid both as a producer and rapper was immense.

"DJ Paul and Juicy J are my favorite producers growing up," Purrp said when asked about early Memphis influence on his musical make-up. "Nobody could tell me shit about them. We used to have arguments. I'm a big fan of Eminem and Lil Wyte, but we used to have arguments about who's the greatest white rapper and people used to be like, 'Nah nigga it's Eminem,' and another group of niggas be like, 'Nah nigga, it's Lil Wyte.' Lil Wyte wasn't no joke back in the day; that motherfucker had hits, so that just boosted my ear of music to a whole another level."

"It's some shit you can bounce to," Denzel Curry said in describing '90s Memphis Rap. "It's some shit you can just be like, 'Oh that nigga actually killed that shit,' and you get crunk to that shit; you get phonky to that shit."

Big Business: The Influence Of Early Memphis Production In Today's Rap
"Because we really love to make a stand / It's the high capitol make me touch a man." -Lord Infamous, "Big Business"
Instrumentally, an extension of early Memphis Hip Hop is way easier to find in today's artists than just the smaller pot I've mentioned above. Three 6 Mafia is heavily credited as being the forefathers of crunk music, and to a lesser extent, trap.

The deep 808s mixed with high-pitched piano loops was a trademark of earlier Three 6, especially in their albums The End and Chpt. 2: World Domination. It would also continue into their later and more commercial success, trading in the initial appeal of their occult-based and underground niche to one based on catchy hooks and more exploited bass. Their hits "Stay Fly" and "Poppin My Collar" were less satanic and more commercial friendly, exchanging cult fans for those less attached to underground Rap. Even with this transition, the content still featured the gangsta element and was an evolution to what they had laid years earlier. While Atlanta is often credited as an origin point for club-based Rap with the Crunk scene becoming heavily popular during early-to-mid Aughts, Memphis classic "buck" and early horrorcore were just as influential if not more so to the mainstream acceptance of 808-powered music emanating from The A.

Even today, we know early Memphis' influence is definitely present in production. Aside from literally, with Juicy J's recent solo success, Mike WiLL Made-It has worked heavily with Juicy on the production tip early in his career. Lex Luger, a godfather of neo-trap music beyond 2007 came in under the Juice Man. Drumma Boy, another one of today's hottest beat-makers is originally from Memphis and in a 2011 interview with m agazine, acknowledged Three 6 Mafia's influence.

"If you grew up in Memphis and really saw that impact, you had to be motivated by crunk music, just getting buck, tearing the club up," Drumma Boy said when asked if Three 6 was a role model. "Coming up from Memphis and seeing the impact they really had, like a lot of people haven't seen the impact Three 6 Mafia has had on the South, or certain cities."

More commercial content-based examples from year's past include Crime Mob's 2004 track "Ellenwood Area," which takes on an eerily similar hook and title to Triple 6 Mafia's song "North Memphis Area," released more than a decade earlier. Rap fans today who bump Jay Z and Kanye West's "H.A.M." or Juicy J's "So Much Money" probably don't even notice they're listening to a more-evolved instrumental product of an over 20-year-old Southern Rap sub-genre.

The End: Where Does Traditional Memphis Go From Here?

I guess the final question is why? Why, within the last few years, has this heavy influence of specifically early Memphis horrorcore Hip Hop reemerged? A quick answer would be the evolution of Internet use in Hip Hop. Up-and-coming, young rappers are able to use the Internet to find the specific sounds and videos that most appeal to them, and ultimately separating them from the necessity to present regional representation. This trend is not exclusive to Memphis but definitely happening in the M-Town. As pointed out in a 2011 FADER piece by Andrew Noz, prevalent artists currently producing Rap music have little to no interest in carrying on Memphis' past sub-genre as far as content is concerned. Most of today's more prevalent decedents of M-Town horrorcore Rap preside from different parts of the country. Denzel Curry, SpaceGhostPurrp and most of Raider Klan reside in Miami, Lil Ugly Mane is from Richmond, Virginia and Amber London calls Houston home.

The fate of Memphis horrorcore's sound resides in the continued legacy of Three 6 Mafia and newer artists, such as the aforementioned. Memphis is no longer Memphis, just like Atlanta's sound no longer comes exclusively from the A. In the age of the Internet, sound travels and the fate of a traditionally regional-based sub-genre is in the hands who finds it inspirational.

"Gangsta Boo was telling me that [Lord Infamous] fucked with my music hard," SpaceGhostPurrp said in regards to his relationship with the deceased Three 6 Mafia member. "I met Juicy J three years ago, back in 2011 and he told me, 'You remind me of Lord Infamous back in the day.' And when Juicy J told me that shit, it just made me feel like I was right about everything I felt about they music growing up."

Right now, I'm excited about the prospect of Memphis horrorcore's future. Every time I hear SpaceGhostPurrp's dark, self-produced melodies, I feel he's just another reminder of the heavily slept on influence that '90s Memphis horrorcore Rap provided. I think Lord Infamous would agree too.

"[Lord Infamous] was a legend, everybody know him as a legend and everybody loved him," DJ Paul said. "He was before his time, he was a legend and he'll live on forever."
Paul Meara is a Columbus, Ohio native who has written for numerous music outlets including MySpace, XXL, Complex and Columbus Alive. He has been a contributor at HipHopDX since 2011. Follow him on Twitter (@Paul_Meara).

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Come Back To Hell: The Resurgence Of Memphis Horrorcore

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December 20, 2013 started as any other lazy Saturday. I rolled out of my bed at around 11:00, stumbled to my laptop and fired it up. Hip Hop news on the weekends is slower. Artists don't typically drop material on Saturdays or Sundays, and oftentimes it's a clean up period in preparation for the week ahead.

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In this first musicological history of rap, Cheryl L. Keyes traces the genre's history from its roots in West African bardic traditions, the Jamaican dancehall tradition, and African American vernacular expressions to its permeation of the cultural mainstream as a major tenet of the hip-hop lifestyle.