Bone Brothers: Still Thuggin' nice read

[STILLDRE IS THE GODFATHER]

Bone Brothers: Still Thuggin'
Tuesday - March 08, 2005
Bayer L. Mack
With over 30 million records sold worldwide, a Grammy and (living) collabos with Hip-Hop’s holy trinity of Tupac, Biggie and Eazy-E, you would think there’s not much left for Bone Thugs-n-Harmony to accomplish. You’d be wrong. Twelve years deep in the game, Bizzy, Krayzie, Layzie and Wish still got heat for that ass. HHDX recently caught up with Layzie Bone and Krayzie Bone to discuss the new Bone Brothers album and the future of BTNH.

Layzie, what’s the biggest difference between your life now, and ten years ago at the height of Bone’s popularity?
Basically, the biggest difference is the level of responsibility. Ten years ago we could run around and be just wild and scott free. As opposed to today… it’s about the amount of bills. We got children. We got families. We got wives. We grown men – back then we was kids. We was teenagers going crazy.

Speaking of Krayzie… what sticks out in your mind the most about that time?
The most memories I got about it is just livin’ the life. Like [Layzie] said, just running wild [and] not having a care in the world. Just livin’. Just really livin’ life – that feeling about being on top of the world.

What, if anything, do you miss about that period in Bone’s history?
The thing I miss most is that we was like fresh in the game. Everything was new to us, and Bone was so strong back then. We was fresh off the streets. All of us was tight and the family was so strong that it was just ridiculous.

Layzie, you seem to be the guy that reigns in the crew and calls all the brothers. Is that a good read on you?
You hit the nail in the coffin. That’s what I do! Bayer, man, I just love my dogs so much and everybody going different directions. I ain’t the only one that pull us back [together] or had to call everybody. That’s what we do. Krayzie Bone, he hit that studio and make sure we have a Bone Thugs-n-Harmony album done. I’ll be the one to go chase Bizzy down or I be the one to go get Wish from Cleveland. We all play our prospective roles. That’s just the role I been playing. I don’t mind. I love it because I get to do [what comes naturally]. Yeah… that’s me, man.

Krayzie, did Bone’s legal and internal problems come at the worst possible time for the group?
Definitely, they came at a terrible time, but your past eventually catches up with you. You’re not just going to keep rollin’ like that all the time. Sometimes you got to be knocked down and sit down for a minute to realize the things you done wrong. Take the time out to see where you really wanna go. Sit and just think about it and put everything in perspective. Hopefully, you get back up and get a chance to continue the road that you was on.

You’re spearheading the new Bone album. What is it taking to put that together? Are there any pending legal issues?
There [are] no legal problems. We totally free. We’re not signed to any label right now. Basically, we’re out here shopping deals. As far as us recording, all it takes is for us to be in the studio together. We can come up with two albums in two weeks. The creative process is always there. Whenever we get into the studio together, we just bangin’ out song after song after song. It’s just a matter of us all coming together and going to do the business part. You know… getting these deals situated and getting the best deal.

Is the new Bone Thugs-n-Harmony album coming out on your Thugline label?
Nah… we looking for bigger opportunities for the Bone Thugs-n-Harmony with major distribution. When we do BTNH, it’s something big and it has to be treated that way. We can’t just take any deal and try to push BTNH. We have to make sure we out there worldwide and everybody know that we coming back. Every label that comes to us, as far as major labels, they basically understand what we brought to the game. They understand what it’s gonna take to make Bone happy and to get us out there like we’re supposed to be. As far as independent [labels], they may see it, but they just don’t have the vision or the machine behind them to really push a BTNH project. We have to be really skeptical of who we deal with.

Layzie what are your thoughts on the evolution of the “speed knot” “tongue twist” style?
Really… it’s a beautiful thing. It’s a beautiful thing that people really grasped on and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony was really a part of putting something out here that the world clung on to and wanted to emulate. [Imitation] is a form of flattery. I can’t say much, but it’s a beautiful thing. Now that I’m a little older, I understand [that] everybody gotta eat and if that’s what they wanna do, that’s cool. I really believe it’s a good thing because it’s a bigger picture that can come out of it. It’s good where it’s at right now because Twista been deserved his just dues. He been doing it for a long, long time now. It’s good to see that.

What would it take to get a Bone Thugs, Twista collaboration?
I already did a song with Twista. It’s called “Midwest Invasion.” It’s talking about unifying the Midwest. We did that in like ’99 and it only came out on a mixtape. I got a solo album coming out with the archives of a lot of songs that never was heard from me. It’s coming out May 31st, called It’s Not A Game. I got that song with Twista on there, so you’re going to hear that real soon.

I was listening to “Like Me” and noticed how good you guys sound over an up tempo, lighthearted track. In the past, do you think the ups and downs in your career have caused the material to be a lot darker?
Yeah… we got certain days. We all human. Some days it’s frustrating. You want to make a song like “Like Me” or that’s just what come out. Then some days, you wanna talk about how hard it been or how hard and deep the struggle been. It’s certain days and as an artist… if you can appreciate an artist, you gonna get the dark side, you gonna get the light side [and] you gonna get the in between. As an artist, when you speaking from the heart, you gonna get both sides of it. You just have to decipher the difference and be able to tell where art is coming from – like where is the artist heart at. Yeah man, that’s what it is. You gonna get the dark. You gonna get the light, but you can’t let the dark overshadow the light.

March 26th marks the 10th anniversary of Eric “Eazy-E” Wright’s death. Layzie, regardless of the financial and legal disputes, did you leave your heart at Ruthless Records?
Nah… I didn’t leave my heart at Ruthless. If you mean like, was my heart sad when I left Ruthless? Nah… really what I did was just took Eazy with me. I just put it in my head like, whatever I do and wherever I go, I’m gonna represent Eazy. If I win another award or if we win another trophy, we always gonna be thankful to Eazy-E because he didn’t have to put us on. He didn’t have to deal with the shit he dealt with dealing with us. So, Eazy-E is always going to be prevalent. We working with Lil’ Eazy-E now, so [he’s] always going to be part of our heart. We tried everything we could to make it work at Ruthless and trying to be loyal to Eazy-E, but it just wasn’t meant to be like that.

Krayzie, what do you think about the current landscape in Rap music?
It’s the typical “bling-bling-flossy-I-got-this-I-got-that.” Mostly, to me it’s like the same thing going on. I think the game is really longing [for] somebody to come in and make that change again, like we did when we first came out. That’s what we’re still on. We’re all about making a change and making everybody turn their heads over here to what we doing – cause we did it once, and we damn sho gonna do it again.

Last question is for you Layzie. Is thug/gangsta music the new pop music?
Most definitely. It ain’t really too much gangsta music out here. You got Snoop screaming “gangsta,” but everybody else thuggin’. We done crossed all the way over. People like Snoop and Pac and Bone, we done put enough work in and turned it over to pop culture. I ain’t gonna say it’s pop music, but we’re appealing to that audience. That’s why our new single is “Hip-Hop Baby” because the whole world is Hip-Hop now. You got Nelly doing songs with Tim McGraw. You got country and rap mixing together. You got rock n’ roll and rap mixing together. You got Hip-Hop in everything that’s going on out here. Yeah… Hip-Hop is pop now.

[_That_Cracka_J]

Nice read....that's what Bone needs: A major label backing the GROUP.  Can't wait to hear it!

[Tay]

props for the interview

[Just Another Sunny day in California]

best rap group of all time, hands down, IMO

[THOEDINTHEGAME]

best rap group of all time, hands down, IMO

Co-Signature...


Penny B.

[Tay]

always been my favorite since creepin on ah come up, i like their approach. came up from bein poor and they mostly avoid disses and beef, they just try to make music and money. they still got it, krayzie's new cd knocks and bone brothers was pretty good too.