“My styles are slick/ Your body, bitch, that I will chop in pieces/ No fuckin’ clue to the 5-0 click, no fuckin’ witnesses/ They only saw the mask of Jason that I had on my face/ The scandalous bitch is so-so slick, that’s why I got away safe.” That’s how Gangsta Boo, the Devil’s Daughter, introduces herself on “Mystic Stylez,” the title monitor from Three 6 Mafia’s debut album. When she wrote these strains, Gangsta Boo was 15 years outdated.
Mystic Stylez got here out in 1995, an incredible yr for rap music. 1995 was the yr of The Infamous, of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, of Me Against The World, of Liquid Swords, of E. 1999 Eternal, of In A Major Way. Mystic Stylez has a spot in that pantheon, however Mystic Stylez doesn’t sound like a 1995 album. It seems like proper now. The entire Three 6 aesthetic — the murky samples, the get-buck chants, the flickering singsong flows, the gut-rumble bass tones, the gleefully sinister shit-talk — has impacted technology after technology of underground rap. You can hint a direct line from Mystic Stylez to the completely different strains of chaotic no-future hedonism that dominate a lot of rap as we speak. Within the album’s wild and unhinged morass of voices, no person pops more durable than Gangsta Boo.
On Sunday, Lola Chantrelle Mitchell was discovered lifeless in her Memphis hometown. Before Gangsta Boo’s passing, it had by no means even occurred to me that she’d been a child when she was on Mystic Stylez. I need to’ve recognized that, however I by no means internalized that data. Gangsta Boo by no means seemed like a toddler rapper. Instead, she carried herself with unearthly ranges of seen-it-all confidence. Boo was the one girl in Three 6 Mafia, however she by no means got here off as a token. Instead, Boo talked the identical exhausting, demonic shit as the remainder of the group, and he or she did it with extra bounce in her voice, extra elastic snap in her supply. Gangsta Boo might stand tall inside one of many hardest teams in rap historical past. Amidst the bedlam erupting throughout her, she all the time seemed like a star.
Haven’t you heard all of the issues that Miss Boo was succesful to do? You can see it for your self within the video for Three 6’s earthshaking 2000 posse lower “Who Run It.” There’s Boo hanging out the roof of a rushing SUV, calmly staring down the digital camera: “Dope game, my game/ Hoes lame, it’s a shame/ How that Gangsta Boo is runnin’ the click up on you bitches, mane.” That’s how she all the time carried herself — like somebody who’d by no means been petrified of something in her total life.
When she was on the Drink Champs podcast just a few months in the past, Gangsta Boo remembered when Three 6 Mafia had been “like a punk rock group.” She mentioned it, not me. Boo was a little bit child in Memphis, doing expertise exhibits and calling in to the native radio station to rap on the air. (For a minute, she known as herself Tinkerbell.) Boo had gone to center faculty with Three 6 producer DJ Paul, however she hadn’t recognized him. Instead, Boo obtained herself seen by calling up the late Three 6 member Lord Infamous, rapping on his answering machine.
At the time, Three 6 Mafia had been strictly an area Memphis factor. Nobody had damaged out of Memphis rap to go nationwide, however the metropolis was stuffed with expertise. On Drink Champs, Boo mentioned that she obtained the decision to come back to the Three 6 studio when “another female” didn’t present up. At 14, Boo made her debut on “Cheefa The Reefa,” a track from DJ Paul’s underground cassette tape Volume 16: Da Summer Of ’94, rapping authoritatively about getting excessive over spooky-ass foghorn bass.
Three 6 Mafia obtained nationwide distribution for Mystic Stylez, they usually didn’t lose their lo-fi, guttural depth. The group first got here to my consideration once they accused the blowing-up Bone Thugs-N-Harmony of stealing their fashion. Boo did injury on the Bone broadside “Live By Yo Rep”: “The Triple 6 Mafia do not feel sorry for none of you dirty hoes/ We full of that weed, so we proceed to take your fuckin’ soul.” As Three 6 Mafia’s cult unfold over the subsequent few years, Gangsta Boo’s unflappable growl all the time popped.
Gangsta Boo launched her solo debut Enquiring Minds in 1998, however that album existed totally inside the Three 6 Mafia universe. DJ Paul and Juicy J produced the entire LP, and Boo remained part of the group. She rapped about intercourse with the identical unrestrained starvation as the lads in Three 6 — not a straightforward factor to do while you’re speaking concerning the makers of “Slob On My Knob.” She introduced the identical abandon when she talked about medicine and violence. She seemed like she’d lived total lifetimes, although she was nonetheless actually only a child. Eventually, Boo made strikes exterior the Three 6 Mafia context, rapping on data from Foxy Brown and Outkast and Lil Jon.
Gangsta Boo left Three 6 Mafia round 2001, when she was 21. She wasn’t the one Three 6 member to depart. Over the ’00s, Three 6 stored shrinking, till it was lastly simply DJ Paul, Juicy J, and no person else. Boo might’ve develop into an even bigger star. Instead, she disappeared for just a few years, although her affect remained. For years, just about each feminine rapper who got here out of the South gave the impression to be trying to recapture Boo’s spirit. Boo wasn’t a part of that. She quickly modified her identify to Lady Boo, and he or she obtained concerned in church. Eventually, she got here again, but it surely took some time.
In the ’00s, Gangsta Boo confirmed up on some mixtape tracks with longtime Three 6 fan Gucci Mane. She additionally cast a reference to producer Drumma Boy, however she was gone from the mainstream. When Boo confirmed up alongside Eminem on Yelawolf’s 2011 monitor “Throw It Up,” it appeared to come back out of nowhere. But Boo nonetheless sounded as exhausting and charismatic as ever — as if she’d by no means been gone.
In the years after “Throw It Up,” Gangsta Boo went on a outstanding late-career run. Boo grew to become a prolific collaborator, lending her voice to data from Clipping., Junglepussy, Blood Orange. She made two mixtapes with Houston raunch grasp Beatking. Most visibly, Boo put in a few memorable visitor appearances on Run The Jewels tracks. Boo additionally toured with RTJ. At a few huge festivals within the mid-’00s, I noticed Boo come to the stage and steal the present. Boo would possibly’ve by no means develop into a mainstream star, however she’d earned great goodwill.
Last yr, one of the thrilling tales in rap was the emergence of GloRilla, an underground star from Gangsta Boo’s Memphis hometown. GloRilla has a euphoric power all her personal, however her entire presence owes all the things to Gangsta Boo, although GloRilla wasn’t even born till 4 years after the discharge of Mystic Stylez. Just final month, GloRilla teamed up with fellow newcomer Latto on “FTCU,” an anthemic monitor constructed on the refrain from the Three 6 Mafia basic “Tear Da Club Up.” At the start of the track, Gangsta Boo herself exhibits as much as speak a little bit shit, then so as to add her ad-libs all all through. Boo’s look appears like an act of supreme generosity — a mom giving her blessing to 2 of her daughters.
It’s all the time a horrible feeling to take a look at your cellphone and to study concerning the passing of one other hero. Sunday, the information of Gangsta Boo’s passing hit particularly exhausting. Lord Infamous and Koopsta Knicca, two of the unique Three 6 Mafia members, had already handed away. With the lack of Boo, half of the group is now gone. Boo was the brightest, sharpest voice in Three 6 Mafia, and he or she was nonetheless an incredible presence after her time within the group was over. She died method too younger, however she did rather a lot together with her time on the planet.
Gangsta Boo’s final big-stage second was in December of 2021, when Three 6 Mafia took on their outdated adversaries Bone Thugs-N-Harmony in a lovely, chaotic Verzuz battle. The most instantly-viral second was when Bizzy Bone, the Bone member who’s all the time publicly struggled with all types of demons, threw a water bottle at Boo and kicked off an entire onstage brawl. Boo wasn’t backing down, both: “You a hater, Bizzy Bone! You a hater! You must didn’t take your pills!” That was some wild leisure, however the Gangsta Boo second that sticks with me essentially the most got here later.
Lil Wayne got here out as a shock visitor at that Verzuz battle, doing his verse from Juicy J’s “Bandz A Make Her Dance.” As quickly as Wayne completed his verse, Gangsta Boo ran over and tapped him on the shoulder. Wayne stopped, turned, and wrapped Boo up within the greatest hug. The second earlier than that hug, the look on Wayne’s face was pure fondness, pure admiration. I understand how he felt. I by no means met Gangsta Boo, however I really feel the identical method.