DJ Spanish Fly

The undisputed godfather of Memphis rap, DJ Spanish Fly engineered a bass-heavy, drum machine-led Southern rap sound that's still vibrating through hip-hop and club music today. His notoriously DIY, hyperlocalized sound flourished on a series of hand-duped mixtapes; he only sold a few at the time, but bootlegs were shuttled across the state, inspiring artists like Three 6 Mafia, Tommy Wright III and 8Ball & MJG. And although the first official anthologies of his tracks only emerged in the last five years, his catchphrases and aesthetic markers are pressed into the bedrock of bass music, inspiring artists like Spaceghostpurrp and Lil Ugly Mane and underpinning phonk, dubstep and trap.