“You LOVE My Style!”

While Three Six Mafia clearly have their limits, squashing beef is not beyond those limits. Back in ’99, Krazyie Bone, of former 3-6 rivals Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, and Project Pat did a song together. Recently, DJ Paul and Juicy J were rumored to be contributing a beat to Bone’s latest album, Strength & Loyalty, though that never did come about as planned… I’m guessing that, with Last 2 Walk being an oft-delayed work-in-progress, 3-6’s schedule just didn’t allow that to happen.

The since-ended beef between Bone and 3-6 has been rarely discussed, certainly because it didn’t result in as many record sales (or as many deaths) as that other beef that was going on around the same time. Though I wouldn’t go as far as to call the Bone/3-6 beef “friendly” competition, it most definitely wasn’t on some “You shot my man” or “You fucked my girl” type shit — it was some straight up, “You rap too much like I rap and I don’t like you for it” type shit. Whoever really came up first with the style that was heard so often in Bone’s and 3-6’s records — rapping melodically, frequently switching up speeds and breaking away from the then-traditional “every 2 bars ending in the same word” style — is sort of a moot point now, and that’s probably for the best considering that it’s tough to really prove who the originator was.

On one end, Bone was the first to put the masses on to this style of rapping with ’94’s Creepin’ On Ah Come Up — which featured the classic singles “Thuggish Ruggish Bone” and “Foe Tha Love Of Money (feat. Eazy-E)” — preceding Three Six Mafia’s ’95 debut Mystic Stylez. However, both groups have material that pre-dates their debut albums, so the difference of 1 year between ’em isn’t much of an indicator as to who came first. On the other end, 3-6 were the first to put out a diss record — “Live By Yo Rep (B.O.N.E. Dis)” off Mystic Stylez. Maybe 3-6 felt slighted by Bone using a style so similar to theirs, or maybe 3-6 were the real biters and just wanted to come out on the defensive. Or perhaps 3-6 could’ve just been looking to get some recognition off of battling an at-the-time more successful crew. Bone answered back on their ’97 album The Art Of War, not only responding to 3-6’s accusations, but also going at the likes of other “fast rappers” like Chicago natives Twista, Do Or Die and Crucial Conflict, all of whom had dissed Bone for alleged style-jacking… but none of whom had dissed 3-6. Interesting.

Listening to some of 3-6’s records from their early years (a few of which are linked below, as well as some other tracks relevant to this post), and listening to some of their more recent records, it’s crazy to think that this is the same group who once accused, of all people, Bone Thugs of jacking their style. Of course, back when Three Six Mafia actually had six members, it was mainly Lord Infamous and Koopsta Knicca (both of whom are no longer with 3-6) who sounded the most similar to Bone; meanwhile, DJ Paul and Juicy J, the only current members of 3-6, probably rapped the least like Bone out of the original Mafia members.

Download: Bone Thugs-n-Harmony – “Thuggish Ruggish Bone”

Download: Bone Thugs-n-Harmony featuring Eazy-E – “Foe Tha Love Of Money”

Download: Bone Thugs-n-Harmony – “U Ain’t Bone”

Download: Bone Thugs-n-Harmony featuring 2Pac – “Thug Luv”

Download: Notorious B.I.G. featuring Bone Thugs-n-Harmony – “Notorious Thugs”

Download: Three Six Mafia – “Da Summa”

Download: Three Six Mafia – “Live By Yo Rep (B.O.N.E. Dis)”

Download: Three Six Mafia – “Late Nite Tip”

Download: Crucial Conflict – “Hay”

Download: Do Or Die featuring Twista – “Po Pimp”