Rap music and the horror film genre are anything but a foregone collaborative conclusion, but for Three 6 Mafia, it has been a dichotomy that they have embraced. Taking a glance at the album cover to each group member's recent solo offerings, it becomes clear the group's link to the grim. Even DJ Paul and Juicy J's recent mixtape Cut Throat screams more tales from the hood than Boyz N Tha Hood. 

15 years after their horrorcore debut Mystic Stylez, the rap duo have won an Oscar, introduced sizzurp to the world, and even had their own reality show on MTV. 

While still making beats and bars that bump in the club, Three 6 Mafia still maintains a bit of that things that go bump in the night feel. Most recently, they succeeded in merging the two sides in their RIAA certified platinum song Lolli Lolli, borrowing the theme from the Halloween movies.

With the release of their next album, Laws Of Power, on the horizon, Three 6 Mafia are back in the studio fine tuning their next album during a time when mainstream radio has shifted towards the synth and bass that have populated so many of their records.

Taking a break between studio sessions, Juicy J chops it up with Yo! Raps about all topics from his favorite horror films to Twitter.

The singles you've released have been more pop heavy and you've said you're focusing more within that, tell me what you mean by that.

As far as single wise, they do lean more towards pop-rhythmic but we always release two singles. We got one going towards urban and we got one going towards pop and these days you got to do that because you gotta give the people what they want to hear, you know what I'm saying. People have that pop song, then you have that pop song ready for the poppy people. If people want to hear that urban record, then you got that urbee-jerby for the urban people.

With the more pop approach and the synth based music, we've seen you collaborating with Sean Kingston and Tiesto, are there plans in the works to do more with an artist like Tiesto.

Oh yeah. I love Tiesto. Frankie produced it, we got some more songs like that, we got tons, we trying to get this money.

Laws Of Power was set for a January 2010 release date, now got pushed back, what was the cause for that?

Three 6 Mafia has been around for years man, and I feel like we're not gonna release an album till it's ready. We always were like this till we knew for sure that the album was ready and was what the fans wanted and we want to put out some good music. We can't just go throwing anything out there. So for right now, it's maybe late May.

You're calling in from the studio, what do you have going right now?

Right now, I got some mixtape stuff. I've been doing a lot of mixtapes, just keeping some appetizers on the plate for the fans. I just released a mixtape with DJ Smallz called Cut Throat. It's real, it's blowing up, getting hot in the streets, something for my core fanbase. And then we got the feel it song which is doing real good, it's growing everywhere, internationally.

What features do you have on the album so far?

Laws Of Power has Sean Kingston, Tiesto, Tech N9ne, Project Pat, Flo Rida, Kevin Rudolf, we got so many songs, I could just keep going. We've made like 50-60 songs and we picking through for the best ones.

Tell me how the Tech N9ne collaboration came about, that seems like something right up your alley.

Dr. Luke made this track, and we came up with the song, it was called Shots After Shots and we were like, "Man, we big fans of Tech N9ne." So we thought it would be a great collaboration for Three 6 Mafia and Tech N9ne to do something because you know we did shows with him and we see him around all the time and we figured it was about time to get him in the studio and do something with him. And it's major - everyone loves that song. They are playing it in bars out here in California.

Talking along the horrorcore sound and your appreciation of horror music, I'm surprised you haven't done a soundtrack for a horror film, is there anything in the works?

I mean, anybody that wants to do something, give me a call. I love horror flicks, these are my favorite movies. And we've always been fans of horror films. You never know, somebody could knock on the door and want Three 6 mafia to produce a horror movie and play in the movie and do the soundtrack, music and everything, we capable of doing it!

What do you love about horror movies so much?

Man, I think it's like, "What's gonna happen next?" That's like you see someone gets killed in this scene, you like, "What's gonna happen next?" Most horror flicks these days are kind of like mysteries too. Like, "Who's the killer?" and I love mysteries. You do remember a long time ago, it was a movie called Prom Night where they were killing everybody? I ain't talking about the new Prom Night, I'm talking about the original Prom Night and everybody was trying to figure out who the killer was. I love that movie! At the end, I think the guy hit him across the head with a stick or something and he fell out and they pulled the mask out and it was that kid that they used to pick on back in the day. Somebody killed his sister or something...if you saw the movie you knew what I was talking about. It's a slasher! I think it came out in the late 80's or something but that movie was kinda like Scream. You know the movie Scream? It was kinda like you were trying to figure out who was the killer. I like movies like that. And I love the Jason Voorhees and the Freddy Krueggers and all that kinda stuff. 

How do you think that relates to your career, to the feelings behind it, the emotions behind it?

Man, I mean, coming from Memphis, man, Memphis is like a gangsta town. And I think this is like dark music, it's almost like when you see it, when you watching that scary movie and that music gets to playing, that scary music, it's like something about to go down. It seems like everything is like 'Gangsta' and it sounds 'Gangsta'. And that's a lot of times, a lot of our music. When we were making music back in the 90's, we were watching them scary movies and it was like the music and the environment that we were in, everything went together. I can't say how it really happened, but we were just so inspired by scary movies and scary music like that, horror flicks.

Did you feel like you could relate to the horror movies growing up in Memphis?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's my hometown.

Is there anyone that you haven't lined up for the upcoming album that you'd like to collaborate with?

Metallica. We listen to a lot of Metallica.

How is it different for you interacting in social media, specifically Twitter? Letting your fans see your day to day activities.

I think it's pretty cool because a lot of times a person prolly needs to figure out what your character is. I think it makes it interesting because if you are a fan and you are hearing a CD and then you be like, "Man, I just saw Juicy J on Ustream! That guy is crazy as a fool! He does actually drink vodka and tonic!" [Laughs].

Do you feel like social media allows you to connect with your fans more directly?

Yea, I like it! I talk to fans pretty much everyday. I like it because they give their opinions on the music and I like to hear their opinions. I'm not saying I pay attention to it a lot, but I do. I listen to the fans because they are the ones that go pick the CDs up. I look at that, and I laugh at it. When I be on Twitter, I say give your honest opinion, I don't block no one on my Twitter pages. Whatever they wanna say, it's gonna be dat. I don't care. I like a person that keeps it real. So it's cool man. I ran into a lot of old school home buddies on Twitter. Folks that I ain't talked to in 20 years! Which is cool.

- By Rory Heath