For Strength in Loyalty, they finished close to 100 songs and at press time it was unclear which ones would make the final tracklist. They’ve also worked with unproven producers like the Platinum Brother and Swizz Beatz protégé Neo da Matrix, as well as indulged some of their stranger tendencies-like recording a song based around a sample of Fleetwood Mac’s soft rock triumph “The Chain” and another that features Tupac Shakur’s furious rantings played continuously in the background. In the past the group mainly stuck to a single producer for the duration and kept features to a minimum, but for these sessions big name beatmakers and guest vocalists were piled on: Akon, Will.I.Am, Cool & Dre, former rivals Three 6 Mafia, Twista (who they also once beefed with), the Game, Jermaine Dupri, frequent collaborator and style disciple Mariah Carey, Big Boi, Kelly Rowland and others. As for Flavor Flav’s resurgence…it’s best not to think about it too much unless you want to bum yourself out.ĭuring the making of Strength in Loyalty, Bone Thugs were party to how hip-hop albums are now put together on major labels. Former Goodie Mob member Cee-Lo recently caught another break with Gnarls Barkley, but he was aided by luck, Danger Mouse’s quirky understanding of the modern pop landscape and the fact that most of Gnarls’s fans hadn’t heard of him the first time around. Second chances for rappers don’t come often, especially not with the support of one of the music industry’s most successful labels.
This spring brings their seventh album Strength in Loyalty, the first release on producer Swizz Beatz’s Full Surface imprint, a new venture backed by Interscope.
The troubled Bizzy has other issues he’s dealing with and is estranged from the group. Flesh-N-Bone, the unofficial fifth member and Layzie’s brother, has been serving a ten year prison sentence for armed assault since 2000, with the possibility of parole in 2008. Then they blast the old “Name Game Song” full of holes: Murder-murder-mo-murder, mo-murder-murder-mo-murder, mo-murder-murder-mo-murder, mo-murder-murder-mo-murder, mo-murder, mo-murder, mo-murder….Ī decade later, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony is down to the trio of Krayzie and the cousins Layzie and Wish. “Mr Ouija” from their 1994 debut EP Creepin on Ah Come Up is darkside doo-wop where the harmonized plea to their version of Mr Sandman is not for some lollipop dream, but to tell them how they’ll meet their maker. With their long hair and ill-fitting Indians gear, Bone Thugs looked like more countrified versions of Compton and East Oakland’s street reporters, yet in their lyrics they added an element of morbid spirituality that mixed the traditions of black Christianity with the occult. Rap was just beginning to realize that all its stars might not come from the coasts and some shots had already been fired from Chicago and Flint, but no one expected that the Midwest would claim its place through the gloom of Cleveland. They were four skinny boys who made their corner of E 99 & St Clair sound like the gateway to hell and brought a horse drawn carriage on stage at the MTV Video Music Awards. In the mid-’90s the Cleveland-born quartet of Krayzie Bone, Layzie Bone, Bizzy Bone and Wish Bone were one of the biggest and weirdest acts in hip-hop, if not in all of popular music. Since then Love has been in charge of braiding, fro-ing, combing out, blow drying and ponytailing the members of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s hair, even though private planes and endless cashflow are no longer their reality. “Every time I wanted to go home they started throwing money at me,” she says. She ended up on the road for eight weeks.
When she tried to get a ticket back to California they told her she couldn’t leave them and gave her $1000 to go shopping for clothes. The morning after the ceremony, Love woke up and all the management folks she had been dealing with were gone and had been replaced with a new crew for their tour that was about to start. With paper maché or some shit still in their hair, they convinced Love to come with them across the country in a private plane. The shoot went late, of course, and Bone Thugs had to get to New York for an awards show.
Her first gig was a music video whose name she can’t remember, but based on the vague details she gives, it was probably “East 1999” from their first full-length E 1999 Eternal. April Love met Bone Thugs-N-Harmony out in LA in ’94 and started doing their hair shortly thereafter.