- You ready to get crunk, Nahre? - Is this crunk? - This is getting crunk. You gotta do like this,
you gotta pull down. - Like this? Down or up? - Pull, pull, pull, pull. - Booming 808 beats, catchy group vocal hooks, quick hi-hat rolls, and a triplet rap flow. These are some of the defining
features of trap music, today's most popular hip-hop genre. (trap music) But let's go back 25 years to a group that pioneered the sound before
the word trap was even used to describe music. (hip-hop music) - In our episode on trap music, we covered how the genre
was formed in Atlanta by the artists Gucci Mane,
T.I., and Young Jeezy to become the phenomenon that it is today. But now, we want to focus on
a group that came before them and laid the groundwork
for trap, Three 6 Mafia. (upbeat music) What we call trap music
today is really a blend of several hip-hop genres
from all over the south. One of the most influential is crunk, a slower, more severe style of rap music that weave club and party
culture with gang life. And although Three 6 Mafia are
responsible for popularizing the genre, the sound can be traced to another Memphis artist, DJ Spanish Fly. (rap music) - I'm not familiar with
any of these artists. - Okay, okay. - Yeah, it's been eye-opening. - Not even like the newer
stuff like Solja Boy, you know about Solja Boy? - Yeah, no. No, not at all. (laughing) For me as a musician,
hearing the different elements of what goes in
to music, like crunk music, it makes me kind of think about oh, these specific musical
elements really allow the musician to tap into
these types of emotions, and I think that's fascinating. Sonically, crunk emphasizes
aggression and tension via minor chords, slower
tempos, distorted bass, contrasting rhythms, and
often abbrasive tambers. You can hear this in the
video game-like beats of Tommy Wright III. (rap music) Early crunk producers
often use these homemade sounds in place of the standard hip-hop building blocks of funk and soul samples used by east coast rappers. This sound was paralleled
by the growing popularity of a dancing style called gangsta walking, which moved between
elegant, fluid footwork to dramatic pop-locking, and stomps. (upbeat music) - In the early 90's,
Three 6 Mafia emerged from Memphis's DIY mix tape community where local artists would create and sell cassette tapes that mixed their own music with popular hip-hop. While in high school, (bell ringing) DJ Paul and Lord Infamous
formed The Serial Killaz and put out regular mix tapes, adding their own production in layers of triplet rap flows to hip-hop hits. These self produced
hybrid playlists allowed up and coming and entrepreneurial rappers to promote their music and
make money in the process. In the early 90's, the duo began working with other local artists. After adding producer, Juicy J, rappers Gangsta Boo, Crunchy
Black, and Koopsta joined, and the group took on
the name Three 6 Mafia. As crunk became more popular in Memphis during the early 90's,
the city's black community was under siege from the crack epidemic. Increasing street violence made it one of America's most dangerous cities. The hard hitting sound of Three 6 Mafia echoed the rawness of these issues. The vocal chance, Lord
Infamous's triplet flows, and DJ Paul's menacing minimalist beats created the model for early crunk and the sonic template for trap music. (Three 6 Mafia plays) - Like it's ultra-violent lyrics, Three 6 Mafia emphasized tension sonically in the music. In their 1997 track Prophet Posse, the sample of the trick a man beat is in a different key than the
synthesizer melodies, creating a poly-tonal harmony, the simultaneous use of two or more keys in a musical composition. (upbeat music) Of course it's not a new trick, this technique has been
used by many composers, including myself, to
create tension between what most listeners expect,
a standard progression that resolves to a stable
tonic and what we get, distance. So, this is an example of poly-harmony. We have one key, E major. Another one, F major. Combine them. Something like this. (piano plays) Three 6 Mafia's beats
laid down the groundwork for today's trap music. Their songs amp up a listener through heavy bass lines, synthesizer melodies, minor key harmonies that
create a foreboding mood, and of course the role in 808. We can even hear how these
intermittent hi-hat rolls would turn into the
rapid fire hi-hat sound of Atlanta Trap. (upbeat music) - These are not the only
way Three 6 has inspired today's rap music. Today, we call the
double time triplet flow the Migos flow. (Migos playing) But it's actually Lord
Infamous of Three 6 Mafia who's credited as the originator. (rap music) While this claim caused
beef between Three 6 Mafia and Cleveland's Bone Thugs N Harmony, the Memphis flow was declamatory, in your face, regular in meter, and more staccato than Bone Thugs's harmonic and more rhythmically
complex group rapping. Here's the trap superstar, 2 Chainz, stating this claim in a song, Trap Back. ("Trap Back" plays) In the early 2000's,
crunk rocked the charts. Songs by Atlanta based
artists like Lil Jon and The East Side Boyz's Get Low, and the Ying Yang Twins' Salt Shaker, had cross over popularity
both in dance clubs and in the strip club scene. Variations of crunk began
emerging on hip-hop radio like snap music. ("Crank that (Solja Boy)" plays) Somewhere during this time, the sounds of crunk, snap, trap, and other hip-hop genres from the south all merged into one. Today, we just call it all trap, but it's really a mix
of New Orleans bounce, Houston chopped and screwed, Miami bass, and Memphis crunk. - It's hard to point the
origin to one city or artist, but Three 6 Mafia were
instrumental in creating the sound of modern hip-hop. Their inspiration can
be heard in everything from the Migos flow to A$AP Mob's beats. Some artists even go so far
as copying the group chants. Rapper, Travis Scott, was sued by DJ Paul for using the tear the club up chant in this 2018 song, No Bystanders. ("No Bystanders" plays) - Nahre and I are gonna
create a Three 6 Mafia inspired track. The simplicity is they made, notice all this stuff
going on in the track. - Mhm. - And it still sounds simple. Maybe it's because of the poly-tonalilty. - It has to rub. The different chords have to rub. Let's see. (keyboard playing) - Real quick, Nahre, what is that from? What are you doing? You just make that up just now? - Yeah. - Okay, can you remember that? Can we keep that? (laughing) - I lost it already, no. - One of the characteristics
of crunk music is the distorted 808 like (music noise with mouth) you know what I'm sayin'? You hear that in the trunk rattling down the street? Like you know the 808,
definitely distorted. - Got it. - But other ones, it's like (music noise with mouth) with the attack really punch in. And usually, I wanna go
for like a more clean, more round, more warm 808. I stay away from the distorted joints, but this is gonna be cool. - I think it'll be fun for
us to put this together because we can just be uninhibited. - Yeah, yeah, just, yeah, yeah. (upbeat music) - Check out our other
series, America from Scratch, another PBS studio show that asks, "What would America be like
if it was founded today?" It tackles big questions. What if there are no states? Should we lower the voting age? Should we colonize Mars? - Woo, howdy partner. - It's like the best civics class ever. Subscribe to America from Scratch using the link in the description below. - We put the instrumental
of our original song on Sound Cloud so go
download it and rap on it. Go ahead.
There would be no modern day rap without Three 6 and UGK.
The crunk era is such an underrated era in rap/ hip hop music
That wasn't tear da club up 95' that they showed with the mystic stylez cover lmfao
How this bitch not know who soulja boy is?
MAFIAAAA
Yo sound field is one of my fav YT channels, covering musical genre education and all that. Def look into them and give them a subscribe!
they didnt even MENTION project pat :(
Simply hip hop icons
thought that was Kyle Lowry in the thumbnail for a quick second