By Zachary Corsa
Queen of Memphis and Memphis hip-hop icon Gangsta Boo passed away on January 1st, 2023 at the age of forty-three.
A pioneering female figure in Southern hip-hop, Boo was born Lola Chantrelle Mitchell in Memphis in 1979. She rose to prominence as a long-time member of the seminal horrorcore collective Three 6 Mafia, whom she joined at just fifteen years of age and remained a crucial member of until departing in 2001. They released six albums together as a group, debuting her first solo song in 1994 with Three 6 Mafia in “Cheefa Da Reefa.”
In 2013, she joined the Three 6 Mafia spin-off group Da Mafia 6ix and was heavily featured on their debut mixtape 6ix Commandments, although she left the group a year later.
As a solo artist, her first album Enquiring Minds, in 1998 reached number 15 on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and number 46 on the Billboard 200. She scored a significant hit with her single “Where Dem Dollas At?”, and would collaborate with the likes of Gucci Mane, Outkast, Lil Jon, E-40, T.I., and other rap luminaries throughout the 2000s. She also worked with other notable female rappers from Memphis, like GloRilla and La Chat, on songs “FTCU” and the EP “Witch,” respectively.
Boo continued recording and performing throughout her life and was working on a collaboration with Memphis producer Drumma Boy at the time of her death. Before her passing, she had been working on an album that was planned to be titled The BooPrint.
As word of her passing spread, numerous artists paid tribute to Boo, including Ty Dolla $ign, Open Mike Eagle, Questlove, Missy Elliott, Juicy J, A-Trak, and EL-P. As Drumma Boy noted in his own post, “Gangsta Boo was like a sister to me and told the world about me the way my blood brother did. We both are Leos and share the same energy towards unity and seeing people happy! This is just such a devastating loss cuz she always wanted to see others win! RIP to the Queen of Memphis, forever my sister.”
GloRilla shared her own tribute to Gangsta Boo on her Instagram, with screenshots of their text conversations. She said, “I normally don’t post screenshots but the fact that she reached out to me before anybody else had a clue who I was … she always supported me & the girls way back before we blew up. A REAL LEGEND there will never be another Gangsta Boo.”
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