Speaking of films, much of the horror element in Three 6 Mafia's music stems from the group's fascination with movies from the genre, but DJ Paul feels like fans have been getting slighted as of late. We've been around for 30 years - so many great accomplishments." "Then, there was our first gold plaque for Chapter 2: World Domination with the "Tear Da Club Up" single on it. "Obviously winning the Oscar," Paul points to as a career highlight. Henson, the group was announced as the winner of the award, making them the second hip-hop act to take home the Oscar. Moments after they performed the song with film star Taraji P. In 2006, DJ Paul, Juicy J and Frayser Boy were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for 'It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp' from the film Hustle & Flow, which pitted them against songs from Crash and TransAmerica. He just rapped for the fun of it, just to throw some extra excitement onto the mixtape and not knowing he was creating something major." He turned himself into a rapper without knowing he was. "He did this with no drum machine or nothing, just using a mixer and looping on cassette tape," Paul continues. The do-it-all-yourself approach that Spanish Fly had to creating music was not lost on DJ Paul. He would loop these rap instrumentals and throw a soul loop on top of something and rap over it." DJ's weren't rappers back then, they were guys who played rap songs that rappers made. Mostly, what attracted me to him more than everyone else was that he was a DJ who was rapping. "He was making the Gangsta Walk music," Paul says about what drew him to Spanish Fly. "He had a song called 'Gettin Away with the Medicine' talking about getting away with selling drugs and things like that. DJ Paul's biggest influence was undoubtedly DJ Spanish Fly, who, without being aware of it, was laying the blueprint for DJs who would also rap as well. In the early stages of hip-hop in Memphis, there were only a handful of DJs making noise in the city. It was drug music and now it's drug time in our society." Drugs is the most popular thing in the world right now, with marijuana and things being legal. "That's what it was made for, and that's what the kids are doing now. "Snap crackle pop rap was one thing, but this is hardcore, get high to it, get crunk and have fun in the club music," he says. This is the fun stuff.'"Īnd while the music is fun, DJ Paul understands that there's a drug element that has a presence in the music as well. They're going back to it like, 'Holy crap. Now, they're in their late teens and early twenties and starting to hear about the aggressive rap that we did. "These young kids grew up with the more laid-back friendly rap that was going on in the mid-to-late 2000s. "We sold millions of records on our own, and now, the young kids done got ahold to it, and it's brand new to them," Paul says. Two of their albums, When the Smoke Clears: Sixty 6, Sixty 1 and Most Known Unknown, have been certified platinum. Three 6 Mafia's music has sold nearly six million albums to date. It was so far ahead of its time and now it's just catching onto the masses." "We put up $4500 and put the music out ourselves and it blew up. "We put our own money behind it," he recalls. Undeterred, the group decided to seek alternate ways to break into an industry that wasn't yet quite receptive to hip-hop that wasn't from New York or out on the West Coast. Radio stations didn't want to play it and this and that." So when we came out talking about it, we were so far ahead of our time that no record labels wanted to sign us. "We were talking about drugs and getting crunk and fighting in the club and crazy stuff that no one was talking about. This for all my players out there ridin'."To be honest with you, we was before our time," DJ Paul says over the phone about the group's ability to remain relevant for such a long period of time.