About 6 years ago, the rap world got shook up by “Thuggish Ruggish Bone” by a group from Cleveland of all places. The song was like nothing most hop-hop fans had ever heard. The group was called Bone Thugs N Harmony, and what made them stand out was their lightning fast flows and changing harmony coming in and jumping over each beat, complementing and accentuating each other. No one cared that you couldn’t make out about half of what they were saying, you heard an occasional “paper” and “thug” and “weed” and “Bone, Bone, Bone…” However, the nature of their music being both hardcore and harmonious, they appealed to everyone from the hardcore gangsta rap fan to a 13-year-old girl.
Bone went on to achieve even more with 1996’s Eternal E. 1999 as they continued putting out good music. Things couldn’t go right forever though and time soon caught up with Bone. After two Mo Thugs family CD’s (the old, ‘I went triple platinum so I can put on other talent’ philosophy) and various solo CD’s which didn’t amount to much the group released their next venture, the overlong, boring double CD The Art of War. The CD still sold but it was plain to all that Bone was falling off, the CD was long on filler and short on substance and Bone had fallen into a void of originality.
Which brings us to today. Bone has just released their fourth CD, Resurrection. Debuting at number two on the billboards, we know that the Bone fans are still out there waiting for a resurrection. Sadly though, Bone does not jump-start their sagging careers with their new CD, but along the way they give us a few tight songs to add to that Bone’s greatest hits tape.
The album starts off very promising with “Show Em” which does just that by establishing that Bone can still put it down with patented flows over an eerie bass driven beat. Next up is “Righteous One” which is another tight joint. This one features excellent production with a female voice delivering the hook - this one hits hard and two deep, you’re ready to declare the return of Bone. However, things slow down a little bit with the average “2 Glocks” where Bone talks about killing people, this is the kind of un-originality that hip-hop doesn’t need, even more so when the beat and chorus lack redeeming qualities. From here on out there are probably two more good songs, one entitled “Ecstasy” is definitely going on my mixtape, probably even more so since this is the first time I have heard a song on the subject. Another highlight is “Battlezone,” which has a bass driven beat backed up by some understated guitar playing and a memorable hook.
Basically, what makes or breaks a Bone song is production, subject matter, and hook. The rest of the album fails on one or all of these necessities. The albums weakest song is the silly and just flat out horrible song “Change the World” in which Bone, after talking about selling drugs and killing people for the last half-hour preaches for us to make the world a better place. They talk about the children, and say murder is bad etc. To add to the damage is a absolutely horrible and cheesy beat, this is about as bad as it can get. Other lowlights include “Weed Song” (I think that the name of this song is a good enough of an explanation), and the title track, “Resurrection (Paper)” which quickly strikes out when Bone excessively uses the word “Paper”.
After a slew of disappointing albums from the Bone Thugs N Harmony family, it seems painfully obvious that they now reside on an irreversible path to anomynity. They obviously have not taken heed of the fact that what they had going for them is that they were unique, but that got played out after “Eternal E 1999.” In hip-hop, change and originality are essential and must be repeated for persevering excellence.
-Colin O'Dell
