Three 6 Mafia group member dies at 40

Three 6 Mafia group member dies at 40

By Miriam Coleman

     Three 6 Mafia founding member Ricky “Lord Infamous” Dunigan died on Friday night at the age of 40. His bandmate and uncle DJ Paul told Rolling Stone that the rapper died in his sleep of a heart attack at his mother’s house in Memphis. “He was at home sitting at the table and he just laid his head down and he just left us,” Paul said. Although Paul says Infamous had not been ill recently, he did suffer a stroke and heart attack in 2010.

Lord Infamous began his hip-hop career alongside DJ Paul (his mother’s younger brother) in Memphis in the early 1990s. Along with Juicy J, the two formed Three 6 Mafia in 1991 and released their debut album, “Mystic Stylez” four years later. In 2005, Three 6 Mafia became the first rap group to win a Best Original Song Oscar for their track “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” which was featured in the film “Hustle and Flow.”

Earlier this year, most of the group’s members reformed under the name Da Mafia 6ix and released a mixtape called “6ix Commandments.” Lord Infamous had been working with them on a new album, which is set for release in March 2014, DJ Paul said. He had also been preparing for the release of his old mixtape series, which is due out in March.