Rapper Gangsta Boo passes away at 43

LOS ANGELES: Rapper and former member of hip-hop group Three 6 Mafia Gangsta Boo passed away aged 43 on Sunday. Boo, whose real name was Lola Mitchell, was discovered dead on Sunday afternoon at about 4 p.m., according to Fox 13. Her death's cause hasn't been made public.

According to Variety, a US-based news outlet, Boo, a hip-hop artist who came out of the Dirty South school in the 1990s, was the vivacious Memphis equivalent to rappers Eve from Philadelphia, Lil' Kim from Brooklyn, and Trina from Miami. Boo's career began with a well-established local gang, Three 6 Mafia, which was created by DJ Paul, Juicy J, and Lord Infamous, and with which she collaborated on a number of studio albums before leaving in 2002. But in addition to a successful solo career that began with 1998's "Enquiring Minds" and its first single, "Where Dem Dollas At," Boo also appeared as a guest on songs by a number of other artists, including Blood Orange, Latto, Gucci Mane, Run the Jewels, OutKast, Lil Wayne, Eminem, and more.

As per a report by Variety, Gangsta Boo stayed a member of Three 6 Mafia through 2001's "Choices: The Album," but she left the hip-hop group in 2002 to focus entirely on her solo career, just a few years after T6M achieved platinum success with its "Most Known Unknown" album and won the 2006 Academy Award for the best original song with "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from the movie "Hustle & Flow." Boo and her boyfriend Emmet Flores had an appearance on WEtv's "Marriage Boot Camp: The Hip Hop Edition" in 2022. She and GloRilla collaborated with Latto on the song "Fuck the Club Up" (commonly known as "FTCU") in December; the music video for the song was just made public two weeks ago.

Along with releasing solo albums like "Both Worlds *69" (2001), "Enquiring Minds II: The Soap Opera" (2003), and "The Memphis Queen Is Back" (2007), as well as mixtapes like "It's Game Involved" (2013) and "Candy, Diamonds & Pills" (2016), Boo also made a name for herself by contributing her snarky raps and tense flow to other artists. Gangsta Boo contributed vocals to OutKast's "Stankonia" album from 2000 and Foxy Brown's "Chyna Doll" album from 1999 before leaving Three 6 Mafia. Gangsta Boo released feature verses after 2002 on Lil Jon's "Crunk Juice" (2004), Yelawolf's "Radioactive" album in a duet with Eminem on "Throw It Up" (2011), the Jeezy/T.I./Lil Wayne triple album "Prime Time Players" (2013), and Run the Jewels' song "Walking in the Snow" from "RTJ4" (2020).