Eternal

Bone shows strength in comeback
Sunday, May 06, 2007
John Soeder
Plain Dealer Pop Music Critic

A new major-label record deal. A star-studded new album. And an off-the-hook new single.

Whatever happened to Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, you ask? They went big-time. Again.

"I really feel like it's a brand new start for us," says Layzie Bone. "The buzz feels like it did a decade ago."

Ah, yes, the good old days, when this homegrown group put Cleveland on the hip-hop map. Bone's 1995 debut album, "E. 1999 Eternal," sold more than 6 million copies, bolstered by the chart-topping, Grammy Award-winning smash "Tha Crossroads."

Those rapid-fire raps. Those sing-song cadences. Those sweet harmonies. Nobody had ever heard anything quite like Bone.

The group all but dropped off the map in recent years, however, beset by personnel issues and shifting record-company priorities.

"I never thought we had reached the end of the road," says Layzie, whose real name is Steven Howse. "When the buzz was dying down, I felt the desperation. But did I think it was over? Never. . . . I got too much willpower."

In the midst of a coast-to-coast promotional blitz, Layzie, Krayzie Bone and Wish Bone headline a concert Tuesday night at House of Blues, the same day their new album, "Strength & Loyalty," comes out. It boasts guest appearances by Mariah Carey, Bow Wow, Twista, the Game, will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas and others.

Bone collaborated with superstar Akon on the album's leadoff single, "I Tried," a straight-up slice of inner-city life.

"We had been running into Akon all the time," says Krayzie, alias Anthony Henderson. "We'd be like, Man, we gotta do something together.' He was like, Yeah, come down to Atlanta, let's knock it out.' We finally took him up on the offer."

Good move. "I Tried" is Bone's first Top 10 national hit since "Tha Crossroads." Over a mellow piano groove, Krayzie raps:

I'm just a black man
And I come from the dark side
So I'm having a hard time staying on track, man
My mind be racing
And I don't even know what I'm chasing

"We hadn't heard anything but the beat, and it was like, 'This sounds like the one,' " Krayzie says. "When Akon put the hook down, we were like, 'This is the one.' Then we put our verses down and it was like, 'BAM!' Now the song is doing what it's doing."

The video for "I Tried," shot this past winter on location in Cleveland, is airing on BET and MTV.

"We're definitely blessed to be still in the game," says Wish, aka Charles Scruggs, the only Bone member who still resides here. Krayzie lives in Los Angeles and Layzie lives in Atlanta. They're all in their early 30s.

"It's not a big deal," Wish says of their lack of proximity. "If we need to get together with the family and throw a barbecue or whatever, we can just jump on a flight, or we all drive and meet up in one place."

'We're relevant and we're back'

Their latest album is coming out via a freshly inked deal between Bone, producer Swizz Beatz's Full Surface Records and Interscope Records, home to such hip-hop heavy-hitters as Eminem and 50 Cent.

Beatz, whose previous clients include everyone from Beyonce to Jay-Z to T.I., is a longtime Bone fan.

"Their music felt like cult music back in the day, especially when you listened to the albums," Beatz says. "Some people were into the singles, 'First of tha Month' and so on, which is cool. But listen to 'Mr. Ouija' [a cut off Bone's 'Creepin' On Ah Come Up' EP] and you're like, 'What the hell is this?' "

He was impressed by how efficient Krayzie, Layzie and Wish were in the recording studio.

"They went in, knocked out however many songs and never complained," Beatz says. "They just stuck to the script."

Bone manager Steve Lobel declined to discuss specific terms of the group's new contract.

"It's a very lucrative deal, with a great recording budget, a great marketing budget and a great promotion budget," Lobel says. "Jimmy Iovine [president of Interscope] told everybody there we're a No. 1 priority, and I'm seeing we're a priority.

"We're on the radio. We're on TV. We're on the newsstands. We couldn't have asked for more. We're relevant. We're current. And we're back."


Truth be told, these guys never really left. They just fell off the fickle pop-culture radar.

Their back story reads like a rap fairy tale. A group of teenagers from the neighborhood of East 99th Street and St. Clair Avenue went from selling drugs to selling 12 million recordings, after they took a bus from Cleveland to Los Angeles in 1993 and auditioned over the phone for N.W.A.'s Eazy-E, head of Ruthless Records.

He produced "Creepin' On Ah Come Up," which came out in 1994. The following year, Eazy-E died of complications from AIDS.

"After the guy who had been guiding their career passed away, nobody really knew which way to go," Beatz says.

"E. 1999 Eternal" was followed by two other Top 5 albums, "The Art of War" (1997) and "BTNHResurrection" (2000). Between group projects, Bone members kept busy with solo careers.

Then came the lean years. Singles failed to crack the charts, while the albums "Thug World Order" (2002) and "Thug Stories" (2006) fell short of the platinum sales of Bone's previous efforts.

Lobel blames insufficient record-company support for the commercial dry spell. After a long run on Ruthless, Bone was briefly signed to Koch, an independent label.

"Bone never stopped making incredible records," Lobel says. "The world just didn't get to hear them sometimes.

"There were a lot of issues with the previous companies. People didn't want to put up the money to do certain things, so you didn't get the right exposure."

A huge "Strength & Loyalty" banner hangs outside Nikki's, the landmark record shop on Cleveland's East Side. Customer interest in the album is running high, says store owner Sanders Henderson (no relation to Krayzie).

"We're anticipating a big release," Henderson says. "I think it's going to go over well because they have a lot of guest artists on there."

Bone even hooks up with gospel singer Yolanda Adams for "Order My Steps (Dear Lord)," one of Krayzie's favorite new tracks. "It's about how we know we need God to help us through our struggles," he says.


Fleetwood Mac is in the house for another standout tune, if only in spirit. "Wind Blow" heavily samples the rock 'n' roll band's oldie "The Chain." More big plans in the works.

Conspicuous by his absence on "Strength & Loyalty" is founding member Bizzy Bone, on the outs after a series of missed concert appearances and other incidents over the years. Bizzy, whose real name is Byron McCane, has spoken of struggling with alcohol and drugs in the past. "With Bizzy, we tried - we really, really tried - to get dude onboard with everything," Layzie says. "His refusal to cooperate and to roll with how the majority of the group was rolling set us back years."

Bizzy and Layzie made a CD together, "Bone Brothers," released in 2005.

"That was my initiative to get him closer to Bone again," Layzie says. "He was there for the recording process. But the first show we had, opening for Ice Cube, dude didn't show up. Left me out there high and dry, you feel me?"

Bone members say the last straw was when Bizzy opted to back out of their new record deal at the last minute.

"He decided to tell us he didn't want to be a part of it, the day we were supposed to sign," Krayzie says. "It made us look stupid all over again. So we said, 'Man, look - we're not about to start this new career with you like this. You go do what you do. Good luck with your life.' "

Says Layzie: "After Bizzy refused what Swizz was putting on the table, I was like, 'You got to go about your business, because you're taking food out of my children's mouths.' Don't get me wrong - I love dude to death. I just don't understand what turn his mentality took."

Bizzy "likes to be an outcast, make himself look important or something," Wish says. "He's an idiot."

Attempts to reach Bizzy for comment through various associates were unsuccessful. "No one can find him," Lobel says.

For now, Bone also remains without the services of another founding member, Layzie's older brother Flesh-N-Bone (Stanley Howse). He was sentenced to prison in 2000 for weapons possession, resisting arrest and assault. "He goes up for parole next year," Krayzie says. "He's staying out of trouble. It's really looking good for him."

In the meantime, other Bone projects are in the pipeline. Krayzie, Layzie and Wish recently finished shooting an independent film, which imagines what life might be like for Bone if the group had never crossed paths with Eazy-E. The movie likely will be a straight-to-DVD release, Krayzie says.

Bone members also have big plans for their own record labels, which they hope will provide launching pads for other artists.

One thing Bone won't be doing is heeding the call of Russell Simmons and Benjamin Chavis, co-chairmen of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network advocacy group. In the wake of the Don Imus controversy, Simmons and Chavis issued a statement calling for the recording and broadcast industries to ban the N-word, "bitch" and "ho."

"It's just a word," Wish says. "If you take offense, maybe that's what you are."

The N-word is "part of everyday life," Layzie says. "I probably heard it in the womb. You're told 'Nigga this' or 'Nigga that.' Or 'Li'l nigga, go wash the dishes.' Or 'Li'l nigga, let me see your report card.' It's in black homes. Some people were raised differently, but not the majority of kids running the streets." Bone speaks the same language as its fans, Krayzie says.

The N-word "has been around forever, so I don't see that [expletive] changing," he says. "We use profanity. But we ain't really out there talking about bitches or hos. That was never our style.

"We're more into socially conscious things, like hard times, living in the 'hood and struggling. Bone is about the struggle. That's why so many people understand and feel our music, 'cause they can relate to what we're talking about."

SOURCE:

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BTNH THE WORLD'S ENEMY DECEMBER 22ND

Sion De Freitas

everyone is always tryin 2 discredit Bizzy.....propz though, Bone sound good on the new track with Akon.

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Mail Man

props reallly long but the thugz are good and the album should be tight

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[IMG]<a href="http://www.rewards1.com/index.php?referrer_id=16074" target="_blank"><img[/IMG]

Zhiwai

Props on this

THE GHOST

great album, everybody should cop it, its got good radio songs, street songs, and the uniqueness bone always brings... one thing its missing is a weed sond tho ;/

240KA

good album imma cop

SiLenT_KillaH

propz......................on dis shit......

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"1+1+0=11"-Buck Marley 07

DemonicSinn

Props my nig

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IDGAF about bein Neg Repped. You can't trade rep points in for money, nigga. LOL

GMNRecordsCT3

Damn, that album was leaked like 2 monthes ago...

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myspace.com/bummydavis - soundclick.com/gmnproductions

"The name on my car insurance is YOUR FUKIN FAULT!!"

Gelly

propzzzzz man

_widen

Props.. buying the album!

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U.S. Sales: Creepin On A Come Up 2,766,000/ E. 1999 Eternal 6,120,000/ The Art Of War 1,600,000/ The Collection V.1 1,250,000/ BTNHResurrection 1,515,000/Thug World Order 440,000/ Greatest Hits 880,673/ Thug Stories 95,000/ Strength & Loyalty 465,123

Chee5e

Good stuff...Proppzzz