Jon Stewart steps to the mic, looks behind him, smiles to himself, pauses for a beat. Then: "You know what? I think it just got a little easier out here for a pimp." And a moment later: "If you're keeping score at home, Martin Scorsese: zero. Three 6 Mafia: one."
In some ways, the Best Original Song Oscar that DJ Paul and Juicy J won a couple of years back might be the worst thing that ever happened to them. Once a mysterious, sprawling crew of psychedelic and bloodthirsty Memphis rappers, Three 6 entered the national consciousness in the most cartoonish of ways: their giddy and incomprehensible acceptance speech. Hard to remember now, but that Oscar came just a few months after their soul-drenched all-Tennessee posse cut "Stay Fly" brought them close to breaking through to the mainstream on their own terms. After that Oscar, the group's narrative became the story of goofy funny rapper guys who inexplicably won an Oscar, a story that the group themselves were fully complicit in. "Adventures in Hollyhood", their deeply embarrassing MTV reality show, was full of moments like the one where they got kicked out of their mansion after an underling pissed on Jennifer Love Hewitt's lawn. No matter how many terrifying gothic-thump beats they churned out for unheard Project Pat albums, it was tough to take Paul and Juicy seriously after that.
Their record label sure didn't take them seriously. Last 2 Walk finally saw release in late June, after more than a year of delays; "Doe Boy Fresh" and "Like Money", their pretty great early singles, don't even show up on the final album. In fact, the thing might've only been allowed to see release because of "Lolli Lolli (Pop That Body)", the minor hit they finally scored. "Lolli Lolli" is a godawful abortion of a T-Pain ripoff, exactly the sort of synth-cheese trance-rap these guys should never, ever attempt. And they seem to know it, too; "Lolli Lolli" comes at the tail end of Last 2 Walk, after Paul and Juicy's customary drunk-shouting outro, basically relegating it to bonus-cut status.
The rest of the album is the group's usual gleefully knuckleheaded fuck-you-up Memphis get-buck shit, essentially the sort of music these guys have been churning out for nearly 20 years. The few crossover attempts that do pierce the nihilistic fog on Last 2 Walk don't make much difference. The Akon and Lyfe Jennings collaborations certainly aren't good, but they never deviate much from the Three 6 aesthetic, and they don't blow the mood too badly. Even the deeply ill-advised Good Charlotte track somehow stays within Three 6's wheelhouse, even if it does completely suck. The vast majority of Last 2 Walk is Paul and Juicy ranting about drugs and blowjobs over beats that sound like John Carpenter soundtracks with elephant-stomp drums, which is exactly as it should be. The Memphis-vet posse cut "First 48" features forgotten local legends Al Kapone and DJ Spanish Fly making a good case for their relevance. "On Some Chrome" is deliciously eerie evilness, and it features the last verse Pimp C recorded before he died. This is what Paul and Juicy should be doing these days.
But the Three 6 Mafia of 2008 doesn't look much like past incarnations. The collective's membership numbers once neared double digits, but now it's down to just Paul and Juicy, both of whom have charisma to burn but neither of whom is actually a good rapper. Of course, it's arguable that no member of the group has ever been a good rapper, though I'll happily rep for Gangsta Boo and Koopsta Knicca. But the riot of competing voices on older albums had its own propulsiveness, and it's just not as much fun to hear the same two voices for seventy minutes straight. The berserk sense of purpose that animated their older albums is all but gone. Somewhere on the way to novelty-fame, Three 6 Mafia lost something, and these days they sound like they're just going through the motions.
