Lil Noid - In the Dark (1994)
I was working on a short article about Juicy J recently, and in the process got derailed by an accidental fascination with Lil Noid, a relatively peripheral figure in the Triple Six constellation. This sort of thing happens pretty regularly in the research-not-research stage of a writing project, which is often just a form of procrastination thatâs only sometimes, incidentally productive. In this case, it was triggered by one song, âLate Last Night,â credited to Juicy even though every verse is Noidâs.
Itâs an unsettling listen, fairly representative of the Memphis vibe at the time as itâs essentially a catalog of violent impulses and directionless anger. Juicyâs hook, âLate last night, lying in the bed, eyes red,â describes a point of view thatâs usually implicit and unstated in their music: the stoned, impotent-feeling speaker staying up too late and getting angry at everything. I was even more impressed by Noid, though, who has this really fragile and strange timbre to his voice. He sounds like heâs on the verge of either crying or just zoning out and wandering off. Itâs a voice thatâs ideally, uncannily suited to that haunted, early 90s Memphis sound.
The song led me to a tape Noid released in 1994, the perfectly named Paranoid Funk, which is as good as Iâd hoped, full of the eerie, swamp noir aesthetic that Kelefa Sanneh once called a âthoroughly accidental sort of low-budget Southern trip-hop.â The tape was produced entirely by Blackout, who was still in high school at the time (captain of his schoolâs drum line, natch) and who would go on to work regularly with Playa Fly and Gangsta Blac. Iâm guessing the private press reissue bubble has burst, if it ever existed at all, but I canât help wishing it would catch up to Southern rap for exactly these sorts of releases.
Noid was arrested at 18, a year after Paranoid Funk, and would ultimately do seven years, missing the rise of Three Six completely (not that he would have been along for that ride either way, as the trail of disgruntled Hypnotize affiliates testifies). I know this happened because he says so on his facebook page. He also says other things, like âMy mind is beyond time, My thoughts are undying,Like the planets in the orbit when they perfectly align..â
Thereâs a video interview from 2009, in which Noid talks modestly about his early days: âAt the school table, youâd beat on the table and rap. I just happened to be the rapper who could beat on the table and rap at the same time.â He touches on the strangeness of his voice: âPeople always used to tell me, âThereâs something about your voice, like youâre creepinâ up on people. How do you sound like this?ââ Noid, it turns out, is short for Paranoid, a nickname he was given as a kid. The interview gets even more interesting when he talks about the Paranoid Funk days, that period right before he went to prison, when he became increasingly frustrated about his financial dependence on Juicy, struggled with coke addiction, and wound up spending time in the same penitentiary as James Earl Ray, the man who in 1968 shot Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis.
The whole thing reminded me of this Tom Bissell essay about how arbitrary literary fame is. He writes about his role in republishing the works of an author whose reputation had faded, and how paradoxically upsetting the experience was: âI felt something akin to what I imagine haunts the recipient of a Hail Mary touchdown pass. Not only was the ball not meant for him, it was not meant for anyone. The joy of victory is cut with a terrifying void. Outcome is particulate; modulating the tiniest variable can spell ruin.â
When I interviewed Juicy, I tried to start a conversation about what happened to the countless Memphis artists who didnât make it, his former peers. He brushed it off, which is fair. Itâs probably a difficult thing to think about. âI just stay focused on what Iâm doing,â he said, âI really donât even know what happened to the others.â
