Name: Gangsta Boo

Mixtape: Street Ringers Vol. 1: The Mixtape

Hometown: The ATL by way of Memphis

Joints to check for: "Change Freestyle" featuring Playa Fly, "Cutty Gul" featuring Kandi and "Sippin & Spinnin"

Previous mixtapes: None, but she's been on a gang of releases put out by Three 6 Mafia and the Hypnotized Minds camp

The 411: So the rumor for the past year has been that when Gangsta Boo yells "chuuch," she's not just jumping on the bandwagon and talking slang. She really means church. The word around the industry has been that the first lady of Three 6 Mafia's Hypnotized Minds camp had given up getting it crunk in favor of a higher calling.

"I guess I'm tired of talking about that, but I guess it's one of those things that's gonna keep popping up like J. Lo and Puffy," Boo said recently. "It was one of those things, me being a star in the limelight, and me doing anything, people are going to take it to the extreme. Because of certain sacrifices and changes in my life, I started going to church more often.

"I was running into brick walls and found myself in and out of depression," she continued. "So I had to go with what was making me feel comfortable at that time: church."

Boo said once she started telling people she was going to church, people mistook that she was changing her ways as an artist, but "not once did it come out of my mouth that I'm going to be a gospel or Christian rapper," she said gruffly.

In fact, Boo can get downright devilish at times during Street Ringer Vol. 1, rhyming about gun busting, sipping on syrup, her friends that got killed in the dope game, and beating up girls who try to take her man. She has a lot to get off her chest.

The year has been akin to a daytime drama for the 24-year-old Boo. She's moved from her native Memphis to Atlanta and started her own label, Crazy Lady Entertainment. But the most dramatic of her life changes was leaving Three 6 Mafia, whom she was down with since age 13.

"There's really no relationship there now. ... I wasn't kicked out or booted out, but they weren't loyal. Certain fans of mine might think I wasn't loyal, but I came to them with certain ideas or propositions, but there wasn't no growth. They don't want nobody else producing beats. ... I have to go somewhere where I can grow.

"Our situation was a little different because we came up together," added Boo, who spent almost 10 years under the wing of the camp's leaders, DJ Paul and Juicy J. "We [were] doing business together, but at the same time y'all are supposed to be my boys. I remember when we were all staying together in one hotel room, performing at a hole in the wall."

Street Ringers doesn't touch too much on the riff with her former peeps, but she does try to reestablish herself as the underground queen. Most of the beats incorporate that energetic but macabre Three 6 feel. During the mixtape's title track, she raps about getting her name buzzing in the streets again: "I'm killing these bitches every time I write a rap/ Stop f---ing with Paul, but baby still got some stacks/ I'm packing the steel and I don't care."

Later she doesn't care to hear the words of guys of trying to run game, or as she calls it "Jail Talk." "Get a n---a, dump his ass," she advises. "Get a ball, spend his cash/ Make him feel like he ain't sh--/ Treat him like he treats your ass." Not exactly material for a Hallmark greeting card.

Street Ringers serves as a prelude to her next official LP, Enquiring Minds II: The Soap Opera, which drops October 14 on Boo's own label. "Sippin & Spinnin" is the first single.

For other artists featured in Mixtape Mondays, check out Mixtape Mondays Headlines.

For a full-length feature on the role of mixtapes in the music industry, check out "Mixtapes: The Other Music Industry."

• Gangsta Boo

Name: T.I. and the P$C

Mixtape: Gangsta Grillz: In Da Streets

Hometown: Atlanta

Joints to check for: "Rap City Freestyle" by T.I., "24's Remix" by T.I. featuring Three 6 Mafia, and "Gatbussa" by the P$C.

Previous mixtapes: In Da Streets Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.

The 411: So who is the real king of the South? Scarface has been certified a lyrical legend for years, Lil Jon's sound is the hottest thing in the clubs, Lil' Flip has his finger on the pulse of the streets, and Ludacris' multimillion album sales have been rivaled only by Outkast. Well forget all of them, Atlanta's T.I. says — he's the rightful crown holder.

He may not have the sales or as much national radio rotation, but T.I., who batted cleanup on Bone Crusher's chaotic anthem "Never Scared," definitely is equal to his peers in the respect category, thanks to his acclaimed wordplay.

The admiration from his core is slowly starting to translate into sales. T.I.'s Atlantic Records debut, Trap Muzik (he released the slept-on I'm Serious in 2001 on Arista) is nearing gold status after less than two months in stores. The drawling MC has also been making waves as CEO of the indie label Grand Hustle. He and his crew — which includes the female rap duo Xtaci and his all-male group the Pimp Squad Clique, a.k.a. P$C — have been releasing mixtapes on the underground circuit to build momentum for the label's movement.

In Da Streets kicks off with a Three 6 Mafia remix of "24's," on which producers Juicy J and DJ Paul create a macabre soundscape that sounds like it belongs on the score of the next "Halloween" movie. Members of the Triple Six also rap on the song, as does T.I. and his signee Big Kuntry King.

During the summer, 50 Cent and Young Buck did one of their patented song jackings of T.I.'s hit "24's," on which they made up a new song using the same beat and the melody. The G-Unit named their track "44's and Calicos."

Turnabout is fair play for T.I. on In Da Streets. T.I. jacks "44's and Calicos" and adds new verses from P$C to go along with 50 and Buck. The outcome? "44's and Calicos II" of course.

"Jack my sh--, I don't care," T.I. says during the opening notes. "If you like it, I love it."

Later T.I. and the artist formerly known as Gangsta Boo (she's now calling herself Lady Boo) try to expose each other on "Don't U Have a Wife." "Why you all up in my grill?/ Don't you have a wife at home?" asks Boo, whose verse centers around a bugaboo who wants her as his mistress.

T.I. answers back, "Nah, baby girl, I'm about to leave her," before posing his own inquiry as to Boo's relationship status. "Why you staring at my watch?/ Don't you have a n---a with one?"

T.I. continues flirting with ladies on a new Cee-Lo track called "The One." "You're the one, girl/ You're the one, girl/ Put your finger in the air if you're the one, girl," Cee-Lo insists.

While T.I. continues to put out product on the street, he hasn't forgotten about Trap Muzik. He has a new video called "Be Easy" dropping soon. Under the direction of Nick Quested (Lil' Romeo, Trick Daddy), we see T.I. and others act out a story, but the clip plays in reverse.

For other artists featured in Mixtape Mondays, check out Mixtape Mondays Headlines.

For a full-length feature on the role of mixtapes in the music industry, check out "Mixtapes: The Other Music Industry."

• T.I.
• Gangsta Boo

Shaggy
Photo: MTV News

While he's being raked over the coals by a prosecutor in a New York courtroom, Puff Daddy is getting strong support from a gallery that has been quick to discredit him in recent years: the hip-hop community.

During his rise to stardom in the 1990s, the rap mogul endured disses from fellow rappers for dwelling on materialism in his work, and for sample-heavy tracks that some said were a disgrace to hip-hop. But many of the genre's elite seem to be looking beyond Sean "Puffy" Combs' perceived musical transgressions to support him as his trial on gun possession and bribery charges draws to a close.

"He and his family have my sympathy and my prayers," Three 6 Mafia's Gangsta Boo said. "I hope that he gets out of this with no problems, no scrapes and no bruises. I hope everything is smooth sailing for Puffy and Shyne." Said Macy Gray: "I hope he comes out all right 'cause he's a cool dude and I hope nothing bad happens." Some artists expressed concern that locking up Combs would hurt others in the hip-hop community.

"At the end of the day I can't wish no harm to that man," dancehall star Shaggy said. "That man provides a lot of jobs for people." Still, hip-hoppers expressed little doubt that Puff Daddy's celebrity has hurt him, even within the rap world.

"There's a lot of people that are against him right now," according to Bone Thugs-N-Harmony rapper Krayzie Bone, who said bad blood between Combs and the late Tupac Shakur is at least partly to blame.

"I don't really know the facts of the case, but it seems like there's a lot of people that want to see him fall. I guess it's just something about him," Krayzie Bone said. "Ever since that sh-- with him and Pac was going on, it seems like people just took Pac's side." Actor and comedian Jamie Foxx raised the larger issue of bad blood between police and the black community.

"Puffy ain't no different than anybody else that has had this happen in any city," Foxx said last weekend. "It's just the fact the light is on him. What I tell all brothers, all black people, because we are graded differently, you've gotta walk a little cleaner. Police, everybody else, wanna take the brother down. People say, 'Oh it's a black thing.' But it's not. It's a reality, so we gotta get used to it and understand if it was Joe Schmo, it would all be good. But these are the tracks we gotta walk in." Pioneering Bronx rapper KRS-One, who had Combs remix the track "Step Into a World" from his 1997 album, I Got Next, said law-enforcement officials treated Combs differently than they treated other popular artists.

"If that police officer that arrested Puff Daddy in the club that night respected Puff Daddy as being part of a culture that was going to retaliate if he got arrested for whatever reason — and Puffy could be dead wrong — but if the police officer thought for a second that Puffy was protected by a culture that was willing to go toe-to-toe [with authority], there wouldn't even be a trial going on right now," KRS-One said. "People are focusing on Puffy's trial, but what they're not focusing on is why was he even arrested to begin with. He was arrested because the police had no respect for him." KRS-One said in the 1980s, when hip-hop was more unified, artists were above the law, in a sense, because they were respected.

"There were a few times that Public Enemy started uprisings at their concerts with 'Fight the Power,' but the cops respected it and they didn't get arrested," he said. "Run-DMC, the Beastie Boys, the list goes on and on. When the justice department respects you, you don't go to jail. What's happening is that the justice department does not respect hip-hop or rap because of the criminal image we present to their children, not just our own." Regardless of the outcome of the trial — the jury was expected to begin deliberating Wednesday (March 14) — the hip-hop community now seems to be unifying around one of its biggest figures.

"We're just trying to be as supportive as we possibly can," said 112's Daron, whose group records for Combs' Bad Boy Entertainment label. "We're definitely praying for him every day." Even longtime Combs rival Suge Knight, the imprisoned chief executive of Death Row Records, expressed his apparent support last week. "If I had a chance, and I could talk to the jury, I'd say 'Look, before you send this guy to prison, look at the consequences,' " Knight said from his California jail cell. "Prison could destroy this guy, instead of help this guy." (Click HERE for a complete explanation of the charges in the Puff Daddy case. Click HERE for our complete trial coverage.)

• Diddy
• Krayzie Bone
• Gangsta Boo
• Macy Gray
• Shaggy