Mystic Stylez

Mystic Stylez
Studio album by Three 6 Mafia
Released	May 25, 1995 (1995-05-25)[1]
Recorded	1994–1995
Genre	Horrorcore gangsta rap hip hop
Length	73:48
Label	Prophet[2]
Producer	DJ Paul Juicy J (Also Executive)
Three 6 Mafia chronology
Smoked Out, Loced Out (1994) Mystic Stylez (1995) Chapter 1: The End (1996)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[1]

Mystic Stylez is the 1995 debut album of the American hip hop group, Three 6 Mafia. Produced completely by founding members DJ Paul and Juicy J, the album was published through Prophet Entertainment, an independent record label of Three 6 Mafia.

In 2001, the album was released by DJ Paul, Juicy J & Hypnotize Mindz, under the title "More Mystic Stylez: The First Album" this version features a new spoken intro from DJ Paul, as well as 2 new songs "War With Us" & "We Got Da Dope."

Background

Three 6 Mafia formed in 1991 in Memphis, Tennessee. Originally known as "Backyard Posse", the group consisted of DJ Paul, Juicy J, and Lord Infamous. The group formed through the release of numerous EPs from their own record company with Nick Scarfo, Prophet Entertainment, which were sold around Memphis and the Mid-West. More members joined the group over the years including Koopsta Knicca, Gangsta Boo, Playa Fly and Crunchy Black.

In the early 1990s Memphis was not known for its hip hop scene. As Kingpin Skinny Pimp recalled, "Back then there wasn’t a lot of rappers like there is now. Now there’s ‘New Memphis’ and they call us ‘Old Memphis’ and back in the day the old Memphis had no major marketing behind it so we really had to go underground."^[3] Rappers from the city were successful in selling their underground mixtapes to other regions however.^[3]

Recording

Recording sessions for Mystic Stylez took place in a studio in northern Memphis.^[4] DJ Paul described the area as "the middle of the fucking projects. It was a side of town we wasn’t from. Juicy was from there and Koopsta was from there but nobody else in the group. We were from the south side but we [recorded] it on the north side. We would just jump in my car. I had a 1972 Pontiac Catalina convertible. Me, Koop, Crunchy, Boo, Lord, all of us would jump in the car, drive over there, meet Juicy and we recorded man. We used to go everyday. Then we would walk down the street to the Whataburger and get something to eat and we just had a good time recording. It was an old R&B singer that recorded the album. He would always tell us stories about his group traveling the world and when groups get older they travel overseas and do tours. I was like, ‘Man, that’s cool. I want to do that one day.’"^[3] The album cost $4,500 to record and mix,^[3] and was recorded on 16 track reel-to-reel tape. As Juicy J recalled, "We went in the studio and just made records, man. Go in there, got high, drank, and just made records. That's all I remember doing. I can't remember 'I came up with… Who did…' We just made the beats. We all just came in and contributed, and the shit came out hard."^[4] DJ Paul and Juicy J produced the album. DJ Paul mostly played synths, primarily on a Roland W30. Juicy J, who "didn’t really play keys too much", mostly controlled the MPC 60 drum machine.^[3] As DJ Paul recalled, "Both of us also wrote songs. [Juicy J], Lord Infamous and I wrote hooks and we were the three main writers of the songs."^[3] DJ Paul also used an SP-1200 sampler to produce a lot of the album, which he credits for its lo-fi sound. "We didn’t even think about [the lo-fi] element back then", DJ Paul claimed. "It was good that it came out like that. We didn’t know sound like that. Now I know sound but back in those days when you had a drum machine, an SP-1200 or an MPC and it would only put out 13-bit sound, we didn’t like that. We were like, ‘Damn, I wish it would be more clearer but it’s not.’ It was just like fuck it, that’s just how equipment was back in those days."^[3] The group attempted to achieve a clear and crisp sound quality but "between recording it on worn equipment, reels and putting that heavy bass in there, which skirted it out even more, that’s what gave it that sound."^[3] DJ Paul stated that much of the appeal of the album came from its lo-fi sound. "People said it sound so hard so now when I be talking to people on Instagram, they be like, ‘I hope it sound like the old stuff man!’ So I’m glad it came out like it did back then."^[3]

During the recording sessions, group members were listening to music by artists and groups such as N.W.A, Geto Boys, Willie Hutch, KRS-One and Isaac Hayes.^[4]

Musical style and lyrics

Described as horrorcore,^[3][5][6][1] the overall soundscape of the album Mystic Stylez is considerably more foreboding than succeeding releases.^[7] Mystic Stylez includes topics such as extremely graphic violence, murder, drugs, sexual practice, the occult, Satan and Theistic Satanism.^[2][1][8] These subjects are mostly underscored by dark, menacing beats.^[7] Juicy J says that Three 6 Mafia called the album "Mystic Stylez" because "everybody [in Three 6 Mafia] had their own style."^[4]

Feud with Bone Thugs-n-Harmony

During the recording and creation of their album "Mystic Stylez", Three 6 Mafia were having a feud with Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. Three 6 Mafia accused Bone Thugs-n-Harmony of copying their style and dissed them with the song "Live By Yo Rep (B.O.N.E. Dis)". Juicy J spoke about the feud years after the album was released saying "Man when we did that we was young and stupid—being real. We was young and stupid. Just some old stupid … It wasn't ever no beef, man. We cool with them, they good people, just some stupid shit back in the day, man. They good dudes, man. We did some music with one of them, Krayzie Bone....something back in the late 90s, something on Project Pat's album."^[4]

Three 6 Mafia member DJ Paul spoke about the feud saying “It wasn’t a real beef,” DJ Paul says. “It was more of a misunderstanding because we was rapping about triple six, devil shit, and tongue twisting over slow beats. We had been doing that since 1989 and then all of a sudden when Bone came out—I think it was 1993… We didn’t know the Faces Of Death album because it was their underground stuff. Just like they probably didn’t know our underground stuff. When they came out with “Thuggish Ruggish Bone” and all of that stuff and we hear somebody kind of on our same style: Faces Of Death, redrum, muder, 6-6-6, tongue twisting. We were like, ‘Damn these dudes done stole our style!’ [Laughs] That’s why we got mad about it. We ran into each other a couple of times and there was a push or something. But there was never no fight or nothing like that.” DJ Paul continued “After a while we became cool,” he says. “Our first song was with Krayzie Bone on Project Pat’s Ghetty Green album maybe in 1997 [or] 1998 or something like that. We’ve been cool ever since then. We’re actually talking about doing a tour together soon. We did some shows together. They was fun as fuck. We had a blast with Bone.”^[9]

Radio play, recognition and legacy

Local radio refused to play Three 6 Mafia's music. However, when people who worked for local radio heard "Da Summa", they decided to play it. This made Three 6 Mafia's song "Da Summa" the group's first song that was played on radio.^[4]

Regarded as "one of the essential southern hip-hop albums", Mystic Stylez has been described as a defining example of horrorcore.^[1] The album led the way for a whole subset of Memphis rap and would influence other artists for decades to come.^[7] Despite not getting popularity and instead being an underground album, Mystic Stylez has been praised by critics^[10][3][7] and was put at number 74 on Complex's list "The 90 Best Rap Albums of the '90s".^[2] Mystic Stylez is cited as one of the forerunners of crunk and trap.^[10]

Track listing

• All songs are produced by DJ Paul and Juicy J

Track listing (2001 reissue)

Personnel

Performing artists

• DJ Paul
• Juicy J
• Lord Infamous
• Crunchy Black
• Koopsta Knicca
• Gangsta Boo
• MC Mack
• Lil' Fly (Playa Fly)
• La' Chat
• Kingpin Skinny Pimp
• Lil Gin

Production

• DJ Paul and Juicy J – producers
• Wayne Tucker – bass guitar
• DJ Paul – electronic keyboards
• Archie Luv – audio engineer
• M&L Photography – cover photograph
• CMYK – art direction and design

Charts

References