Alternative Canon | Kingpin Skinny Pimp – King of Da Playaz Ball (1996)

I want to start on March 5, 2006, the date of the 78th Academy Awards. Among the nominees that night for best original song was a rap group by the name Three 6 Mafia. The song, from the movie Hustle and Flow: “It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp“. When the award was presented by Queen Latifah, the name on the winner’s card was theirs. What follows is the most joyous Oscar acceptances speech I’ve ever seen from a group of musicians who were already underground rap royalty but unknown to much of the Oscars’ audience.

We’ve started here because this was likely the first time many Americans became aware of Memphis rap. Three 6 Mafia are certainly one of the most commercially successful groups to come out of that scene (and have deep ties to Kingpin Skinny Pimp), but there’s far more to its story. That history is hard to come by; during its heyday in the 90’s Memphis rap was largely ignored outside of Tennessee, as most attention was on the East and West coast. Much of the music produced in Memphis was sold locally on cassette, and the vast majority of it never left the area. Some labels have been reissuing select albums (see Sic Records as one doing fine work in that department) but many can only be found as cassette rips in the depths of the internet.

Kingpin Skinny Pimp was one of the biggest stars of the scene, but he hasn’t got near the recognition of many of his peers. He started rapping in high school. After graduating he started making mixtapes with DJ Squeeky, one of the go to producers in the area. A few years later that relationship dissolved and he started working with DJ Paul and Juicy J of Three 6 Mafia; he featured on multiple songs from the first Three 6 Mafia album, 1995’s Mystic Stylez. Off of the success of that record, DJ Paul and Juicy J worked with Skinny to produce an album of his own, King of Da Playaz Ball (and, for more details on Skinny’s origins and career, this interview from 2015 is essential viewing).

The album starts off with a bang in the most literal way possible. Two voices discuss business and turf. One of them says he is going home to see his daughter when shots ring out. The other voice proclaims “that’s what we call a change of plans, motherfucker”. The album never lets up from there on out. King of Da Playaz Ball has always stood out to me as an exercise in world building, and this starts with the instrumentals. The beats are filled with icy minor key synths straight out of a horror movie soundtrack. There’s a lo-fi quality to the whole affair that only adds to the haunted, otherworldly atmosphere. Look no further than “I Don’t Lov’em” or “Lookin’ for da Chewin'”, two of the most striking cuts on the album, for examples of its distinctive sound. Both feel like a unique sonic universe that exists for a few minutes before collapsing into itself.

Then there is the rapping itself. Skinny is, without a doubt, an incredible technician. “We Ain’t No Playa Haters” features an absolutely blistering double time verse, throughout which Skinny never loses sight of the beat while spitting 100 miles a minute. Any flow he tries lands. There are also some killer features from Three 6 Mafia and others; Lord Infamous’s verse on “Y’all Ain’t No Killaz” is a highlight. In that 2015 interview, Skinny says “the shit we were rapping about was real”. Sex, drugs and violence abound, but the most interesting moments interrogate the environment that facilitated these conditions. “Long Story” starts in a courtroom, leads to a police chase and ends with a Black man being beaten by the cops; Skinny raps “They beat him down like Rodney, the W-W-F style“. On “Nobody Crosses Me”, a track that serves as a violent warning to those who might cross the narrator, you get a glimpse of the darkness that pervades his life and informs the threats: “I’m thinkin’ of homicide then suicide / I’m livin’ a hard life with gigantic thuggish thoughts / Let me tell you what my hood is like / Murderer, burglar, robbers“. Moments like this can be found throughout the album and lend its imagery more emotional heft.

King of Da Playaz Ball was a success, selling over 60,000 units with no radio play. Skinny, in need of cash, ended up signing over all of his rights to the album for $10,000 (far less than he stood to make had he kept them). He’s gone on to have a long career, releasing many more albums under his own name and also (allegedly) as a female rapper named Lady Bee. If anything, consider King of Da Playaz Ball an entry point into the world of Kingpin Skinny Pimp and Memphis rap; although it’s one of the finest albums to come out of that scene, there’s far more to be found if you’re willing to look.