Gangsta Boo, a former member of Memphis hip-hop group Three 6 Mafia and a pioneer of feminine Southern rap music, has died at this time (January 1), DJ Paul, WREG Memphis, and Fox 13 have confirmed. She was 43 years outdated.
Born Lola Mitchell in Memphis, Tennessee on August 7, 1979, she began writing poetry at an early age. She typically gave her poems to her father, who in flip determined to reward her a keyboard and a karaoke machine. By the point she was in junior excessive, Mitchell caught the eye of then-classmate DJ Paul whereas rapping in a expertise present at age 14. “He wished me to get on his mixtape, so I obtained on his mixtape and I turned actually standard,” she informed Ardour of the Weiss in 2012. “I used to be being requested to be on extra of the Three 6 Mafia songs and I form of simply obtained within the group like that. Individuals stored requesting me.”
Mitchell adopted the moniker Gangsta Boo and set to work rapping in Three 6 Mafia. She was simply 15 years outdated when she recorded her verses for his or her debut studio album, Mystic Stylez, which got here out in 1995. The LP rapidly cemented itself as a recreation changer for each the Southern rap scene and hip-hop at giant, largely resulting from defining Three 6 Mafia’s horrorcore sound. When describing Mystic Stylez for Pitchfork’s listing “The 150 Finest Albums of the Nineties,” Alphonse Pierre wrote, “Collectively, their writing feels as in the event that they’re all competing to rap essentially the most surprising bar, and the nightmarish tone is emphasised by colourful and hyper-specific references to devil, coffins, and soul snatching.”
As Three 6 Mafia expanded their sound and attain, they continued to churn out studio albums—1996’s Chapter 1 The Finish, 1997’s Chapter 2: World Domination, 1999’s Tear Da Membership Up Thugs, and 2000’s When the Smoke Clears: Sixty 6, Sixty 1—with Gangsta Boo seizing every as a chance to up her recreation. Her circulate was finest outlined by its aggressive, rapid-fire supply and her skill to combine each a charismatic and musical tone to her cadence.
Gangsta Boo additional developed her voice as a solo artist as properly. When she launched Enquiring Minds, her 1998 debut solo album, she discovered an eternal hit in her single “The place Dem Dollas At?” that includes Juicy J and DJ Paul, wherein she nonchalantly waxed about piles of stacks at simply 19 years outdated. After Three 6 Mafia launched their soundtrack Decisions: The Album in 2001, Gangsta Boo parted methods with the group to additional pursue her solo profession. That very same yr, she dropped her sophomore LP Each Worlds *69, which hit No. 29 on the Billboard 200 chart. She adopted it up with the 2003 album Enquiring Minds II: The Cleaning soap Opera, which served as a sequel to her debut.
