The Enduring Legacy of the Project Pat Flow

The first thing you notice is the visuals: a tracking shot, with the camera moving into the center of a makeshift circular venue. A young rapper stands at the center as motorcycles and cars drive on walls. It’s a dizzying display, something you might see in Mad Max Fury Road. Then, the music kicks in—the beat revs up—and you hear the flow. It’s distinctly Project Pat, with the rapper dragging out the vowels at the end of every bar:

“Straight terror, product of your errors

Pushing culture, baby, got that product you can’t measure

Trendsetter, the one who gеt her wetter

Swеrvin’ while I’m bumpin’ Project Patta”

The song is called “Big Dawgs,” and it’s performed by Bangalore-based rapper Hanumankind. Thanks to the video, the quality of the song, and the novelty of watching an Indian rapper hit the Project Pat flow, “Big Dawgs” has been one of the global breakout songs of the year. Since its premiere last month, it has garnered more than 70 million views on YouTube. This week, it reached a new milestone by cracking the Top 10 on the Billboard Global 200 singles chart. The song is a prime example of the global cultural exchange that’s constantly at play; Hanumankind was born in Kerala, India, and the video, which takes place in a structure called the “Well of Death,” pays homage to carnival culture of his youth. Hanumankind also spent parts of his childhood in Houston—about 3 hours away from Memphis—which explains why the song is heavily indebted to Hypnotize Minds rapper Project Pat.

Even after all of these years, the influence of Three 6 Mafia is still apparent. If Lord Infamous’ triplet flow partially defined the 2010s—largely thanks to the Migos adapting it—it’s now Project Pat and his “Patta flow” that’s making waves in the 2020s. It’s not just Hanumankind or a random nursery rhyme song using the flow. Offset had touches of Pat’s flow on “FAN”; you can hear it in GloRilla and Moneybagg Yo’s track “All Dere.” More strikingly, Japanese rapper 7 employs the flow on the “Boss Bitch (Remix)”, which emphasizes how international the flow is despite the fact that Pat never toured overseas.

“With the internet now, the music, it just do that. I just look at it like I’m just blessed. I’m definitely not the power behind it, because If that’s the case, it would have happened 10 years ago,” Project Pat told Complex. “I just thank God and keep it moving, But yeah, I see it all. The people on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok going to make sure I see it.”

Three 6 Mafia were underground legends in the ‘90s who became Oscar-winning pop culture stars in the 2000s. However, Project Pat, who is Juicy J’s older brother, never received the same level of commercial recognition, with his only charting single being the battle of the sexes anthem “Chickenhead.” Part of the reason was Pat did a four year stretch in prison after the success of his Mista Don’t Play: Everythangs Workin album, which went gold. But another factor was his harder edge. Even though Pat was one of the better pure lyricists from the Hypnotize Minds collective, he had a tendency to be unapologetic in the ways he rapped about the criminal lifestyle. While Three 6 Mafia’s raps often felt like supernatural hyperbole, Pat’s were grounded in reality and harsh truths about the streets.

Pat was productive throughout the 2010s, releasing mixtapes series like Cheez N Dope and Street God. However, his musical influence was often channeled through other artists. Some of this can be traced back to Drake—who has Memphis ties, through his father, Dennis Graham—using the “Out There” flow on BlocBoy JB’s 2018 hit “Look Alive.” That same year, Cardi B remade “Chickenhead” as “Bickenhead.” Around this time, Blood Orange did two songs with Pat, including one that flipped “Rinky Dink II / We’re Gonna Rumble.” And, most notably, In 2021, Drake teamed up 21 Savage for “Knife Talk,” where 21 does a perfect imitation of the “Patta flow.”

Project Pat attributes much of his recent good fortune to divine intervention. Since 2020, he has developed a closer relationship with God; he now travels across the country with an organization called Breakin Baggs, speaking to inmates and preaching in prisons. In fact, during our conversation, he steered almost every answer back to discussions about his faith.

“I accepted Jesus Christ when I was young,” Pat said. “But it’s one thing to be saved, it’s another thing to have your mind renewed. My mind was not renewed. The only way you can get your mind renewed—you got to pick that Bible up and you got to read it out loud and you got to get that word in you. But I didn’t know anything about that [back then.] I was just thinking this stuff might be for old people. I didn’t know nothing. God for the newborn, he for the baby. When you first start walking you need Jesus—[you] don’t need to be waiting around.”

What’s striking about the “Patta flow” is how distinctive it has been from the start. In 1999, he released his debut album, Ghetty Green, and you can hear what would become his signature flow on the very first track, “North Memphis,” where he begins the album with:

“Breaking down some reefer, rolling up a sweet-ah

Riding through the street-ah, chiefing like a heat-ah”

Like most truly ingenious aspects of hip-hop, Pat’s flow was an amalgamation of influences. It drew from his surroundings, including both the music he was listening to and the North Memphis neighborhood street slang he heard outside.

“I’m ain’t going to say the rapper’s name, but there was a dude that was out a long, long time ago. He had said the style kinda in a line. He didn’t use it for a style, he just used it in a line. And I heard that line and I said, “man, that’s fire,’” Pat said. “I wasn’t thinking that was going to be my style. What I did was I just took that and listened to some good 2Pac and flipped some stuff around and [listened to] Biggie and listened to some Master P and listened to Scarface and some of that old Too Short. And I just mixed it all in. I just came from Memphis [with it] and man, there it is.”

An advantage Pat had was his versatility. Project Pat has had various flows, pockets, and rhyme schemes. While the “Patta flow” is seen as his signature style, it’s not nearly all he can do on the mic.

“I didn’t burn this style up,” Pat said. “I came with that style. Then I turned around and I came with some more styles. Man, I might have had about 15 different styles.”

Despite embracing Christianity, rap music remains how Project Pat makes his living. He told us that he’s earning more money than he’s ever had. He tours regularly and is still receiving feature requests (he was just on Denzel Curry’s latest album, King Of The Mischievous South Vol. 2). He’s currently working on a new album with Juicy, called THEM GOATS. It seems like Pat, with more than 25 years in the game, has cracked the code.

“Rap game really ain’t hard at all. You just got to have a style. You got to have a swag,” Pat said. “If you ain’t got no swag, you going to have to create a swag. Not sauce—anybody could put something on—you gotta have swag.”

In early August, Pat linked with HanumanKind, who’s now signed to Capitol Records, on Instagram Live for a cross continental discussion. It was Pat who played the role of interviewer, asking questions about India and the making of the video. At one oint, Pat said, “It’s cool to use the style, but when you combine it with that video… man, wow.”

For his part, HanumanKind was mostly deferential, praising the impact of Three 6 Mafia and by extension, Project Pat. HanumanKind told him: “You’ve got to understand the power you have…There are so many songs that have that flow, and it’s immortalized.”