When the 2006 John Stewart-hosted Academy Awards named Three 6 Mafia and their song "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" as the winner in the Best Original Song category, Three 6 Mafia officially jumped from the darkness of the underground to the brightness of superstardom. It was a long, strange journey for the ever-changing roster of Memphis, Tennessee rappers known as Three Six Mafia, but it paid off with unexpected dividends, as they are now considered to be one of the most influential and successful hardcore Southern rap groups of all-time.From the time Three 6 Mafia (originally Triple Six Mafia) formed in 1991, until the later part of the first decade of the 21st century, Three 6 Mafia had two pillars of consistency within its ranks, DJ Paul and Juicy J. Multiple other artists, most of them also from the Memphis area, have complimented DJ Paul and Juicy K over the years. Group members have included the likes of Lord Infamous, Indo G, Koopsta Knicca, Crunchy Black, Gangsta Boo, La' Chat, Project Pat and Killa Klan Kaze.Like many hip hop groups, Three 6 worked long and hard to get where they are today. They played the small venues, paid their dues in and around Memphis while slowly building up a cult-like following below the radar of the radio mainstream. The content of most of their early singles from records like Mystic Stylez, Da End, and Chapter 2: World Domination was extremely violent and confrontational, even amid the growing "gangsta rap" movement brought about by figures like Ice Cube and the more widely successful West Coast version of Three 6 Mafia, N.W.A. For a while it seemed as though the purposefully edgy genre of rap had found its ever-lengthening threshold, because Three 6 Mafia was clearly beyond it. However, the boundary of cultural acceptability expanded to encompass Three 6 Mafia by the time 2005's aptly titled Most Known Unknown broke into to the U.S. Hot 100 Chart.