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 Over the years, no other group in hip-hop has been through the ups and downs that Bone Thugs-N-Harmony has. Just as they begun to crack the mainstream ceiling in the mid-90s, the group was dealt a major blow to their momentum when they found out their mentor Eazy-E was diagnosed with Aids then died shortly after. So without the guidance of Eazy, Bone was forced to learn the biz on their own.
On top of the loss of Eazy and at the height of their success, group member Flesh Bone was incarcerated -- sentenced to 11 years in prison due to parole violations after threatening a man with an AK-47 assault rifle. That's when it all began to spiral downhill. Ruthless Record began to go through various problems and Bone finally decided to leave the label and haven't been able to match the success they enjoyed while there. Going indie combined with the antics of an eccentric Bizzy Bone, the group seems to have never recovered from their setbacks.
Well, that all may change very soon. After hooking up with Swizz Beatz last year, the group -- now a trio (minus Bizzy) -- has got down with Interscope and once again feels like its time for Bone mania.
In an interesting discussion with Layzie Bone, BallerStatus gets the real behind why the group has been able to maintain a hardcore fanbase, why they feel "Bone never fell off," and the various setbacks they've dealt with in their 10 plus years in the game.
BallerStatus.com: This is your first album on a major as a group for a minute. How does it feel to have that major backing once again?
Layzie Bone: It feel good man, you know what I mean? Just to know we got somebody that can really put our music out there and really let it be heard 'cause we had a lot of fans, independent, that wasn't really getting a chance to hear our music. It feel good. The big cameras, the big atmosphere... everything real big right now.
BallerStatus.com: The group and its members have been doing their thing independently, pretty successfully, over the past years. Why do you feel Bone has been able to maintain your hardcore audience all this time?
Layzie Bone: We true to ourselves, so obviously, the real, real, real gonna recognize real man. We stay true to our music and we ain't out here lying, faking and stuntin'. We coming from the heart, we saying what we feel, and we talk about real situations. So, I think that's what basically kept us out there. We never really oversaturated the market.
Our fans been wanting to hear from us because we have been on and off, and on and off for a while now. But, it's mainly because we real to ourselves.
BallerStatus.com: With major hits under your belt in the beginning of your careers, for whatever reason, you haven't been unable to garner that same success on a major level since then. Why do you feel there was that decline?
Layzie Bone: Basically, it was a turn of events. It wasn't that our sh** wasn't hitting or nothing. It was just that we weren't reaching the same audience, you know what I mean? Our audience had gotten condensed down to... we went from shipping hundreds of thousands of units to shipping 40,000 units. With that 40,000 units on the shelves, our weeks were gonna be smaller and all that. It was just the audience demographic of it all man.
It ain't that Bone fell off or none of that. We was at Ruthless Records and it was an independent company. They had a major distribution deal through Sony. Once they went through their situation -- 'cause they were going through problems. You got to remember, our mentor died (Eazy-E), so that was the creative force behind our company. We didn't have the same marketing budgets from before. We didn't have what we had before with Eazy-E. Then our relationship [with Ruthless] turned ugly because we always had creative control with what we wanted to do with our music, then that changed. It was just a bad vibe there, so our messages being sent out got f***ed up because somebody else was trying to control sh**.
It was so many different things, but I know for a fact that it wasn't the music. It was just situations and sh** motherf***ers couldn't see behind the scenes. It's dealing with the business. A lot of people forget that it's the music BUSINESS, it was the "business" aspect of that.
BallerStatus.com: Does it feel as though this new situation and album is sort of a second coming for the group?
Layzie Bone: Right, we basically started over. We opened up shop. If somebody want to relate to it in the street, we opened up. In 1994, we opened up a crack house and we made a lot, a lot of profits on that, but we had to shut that down because the motherf***er was getting hot. It was too hot, so we had to rebuild somewhere else. And now, this situation got us in a predicament to where we ain't got to feel bad about nothing, and we ain't have to worry about this budget or none of that. All the business has been lined up and put into place, so it's easy to feel good about this, knowing that the music is off the hook anyway.
BallerStatus.com: OK, so talk about the initial chemistry with Swizz Beatz that made the deal come to light?
Layzie Bone: I mean, Interscope was looking into Bone Thugs-N-Harmony through Tubby, our A&R that signed us. He was already interested when we was already dealing with Swizz. That's how we -- dealing with Swizz -- ended up going over to Interscope.
The chemistry was great from the rip. What Swizz offered from the beginning was a lot of energy. As soon as we went into the studio, Swizz had ideas that he wanted to do. He knew what elements of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony he wanted to capture and bring back from the beginning of our careers and all that. He was a producer as opposed to us going into the studio... we didn't have Uneek no more, we basically did most of our production and collabs on our albums with him. We didn't have that aspect no more, so Swizz came in and filled the void. He was like a member of the group that was gone a while. He came in, filled that slot and was very helpful. The n****'s energy is always on ten (laughs), so that was another plus because that's how we is when we in the studio working. It's just like, the creative shift and the energy, was just meant to be because from the very first time we went into the studio, we busted down ten songs.
BallerStatus.com: I know you guys have always collabo'd with each other, but when you really come together for a Bone album is when fans really take notice. So, what was it like getting back into the studio together as Bone, being that you guys now have major backing, thus being able to get the big producers, etc?
Layzie Bone: Aw, the sh** was great. It's like we was back in business, baby! We was all the way at the top of the rap game once upon a time ago. We couldn't get no higher, so it was inevitable that we had to come back to reality. We was used to dealing with regular producers and our n****s in the hood that do beats. We got all our own production teams and all that, but when we got into the studio for Strength & Loyalty, sh** was so great, because for one, we hadn't really been together like that. The very thing, the vibe we had, we was in the studio, n****s' laughing together again and talking about things we had been through in our lives and laughed and cried -- the emotional rollercoaster of missing your best friend you ain't been with in a minute. That's when the reconciliation comes in. That sh** was beyond words. It felt really, really great.
What can I say? We had Akon popping in and out of the studio. Jazze Pha popping in and out. Swizz Beatz, all the time and he out here doing big things with Beyonce, Jay-z and all them. We felt like we weren't in that circle after Eazy-E died, like we wasn't welcomed, but that's what I felt Swizz did for us -- bring us back into that circle of the inner-industry.
BallerStatus.com: It's been a rocky road throughout your careers, we all know Bizzy is gone on to do his own thing, so how do you feel the fans will react to him officially not involved in the new Bone group project?
Layzie Bone: I mean, a lot of them are gonna be hurt and some disappointed, but none of them can be more hurt and disappointed than we are. We put our lives into that young man, ya dig? We ain't never done nothing to hurt the n**** intentionally or nothing like that, it was just the decision he made. So of course, true Bone fans are gonna feel like, "Oh, you need Bizzy." When they hit us on emails, they be like, "Get Bizzy back" or "We love him" and sh**, we do too. It's the music business, so he gotta be able to step up to the plate and do Bone Thugs-N-Harmony business. It's time to do Bone Thugs-N-Harmony business if he wanted to be a part of this, but that's his decision.
What fans don't know is that Bone Thugs-N-Harmony is a revolving door. That n**** know that if he get his sh** together, he can come back. This is the way Bone-Thugs-N-Harmony started in the first place, so it's really not too uncomfortable for us. The fans are really gonna have our same energy because Bizzy was the last member to come aboard with us in our lives. If he was to come back next year, it would really be like we started over again and met this n**** down the line.
It's Krayzie, Layzie and Wish. Krayzie been my best friend since we was in the 7th grade back in '85, Wish is my blood and Flesh is my brother. And Bizzy, I was introduced to him through my mother because his mother and my father was good friends. It'll be like we starting over. There isn't really a void. If he come back, it'd be like really how it was before, but if not, we still getting money like we always have. The main rule of Bone-Thugs-N-Harmony has always been majority rules. We always gonna stick to that code.
BallerStatus.com: Also, I hear there is a featured Flesh Bone verse on the album, can you talk about that a lil?
Layzie Bone: Right. We actually got a bunch of songs on him, but we just put that one song on this album man and my n**** sounds like he ain't never left the studio. It's called "The Future." We looking forward to him stepping out of his situation next year.
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