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Interview with Bone Thugs N Harmony member Krazie
Bone. Their latest album Thug Stories is in stores now.
What is it about Bone Thugs N Harmony that makes you all
want to continue making music despite all of the challenges
you all have faced?
Krazie
Bone-The one thing that keeps pushing
us is that when we first got into it, it was about the
music and that's what it's always been about with Bone
Thugs N Harmony. We love making the music that we make
when we come together. Even though we have been through
so many trials and tribulations its like our hunger and
passion for the music has never stopped even though the
business can come in sometimes and make some people want
to totally get away from it. We love the music so much
we aren't about to let nothing get in our way of making
it whether it be bad business or whatever it is. We ain't
the type of dudes like…you will hear a lot of rappers
like "Yeah I'm such and such years old I'm bout to
retire," so God damn what we want be doing music
until we are on some Quincy Jones type shit.
Was appearing at the VH1 Hip Hop Honors Awards to honor
Eazy-E bittersweet in a way because of everything you
went through with Ruthless Records after he passed?
Krazie
Bone-I wouldn't say bittersweet. We
don't hold no grudges with Ruthless Records. I know I
don't. It's all a learning experience. They taught us
a lot of things for our future business moves. I don't
hold a grudge against her. We were all there to recognize
somebody who was a legend in this game. That's basically
why we showed up. We could never be mad at him because
if it wasn't for him we wouldn't even be up on that stage.
This past year you had a big year with the Chamillionare
song "Ridin' Dirty." What was it like being
suddenly being back in the spotlight again because you
all had been out of the spotlight just a little bit.
Krazie
Bone-It was real cool. Actually, I didn't
really think that song was going to do what it did because
we had recorded that song almost three years ago. I had
met Chamillionaire through Play N Skillz, that's who did
the beat. I had worked with them prior and I had been
knowing them for awhile. When I put my verse down that
was the only thing I heard. I didn't hear a hook or his
verse or anything. I went in there put my verse down and
that was it. "Thanks for doing it," and that
was it. About a year later Universal was contacting me
saying this looks like a strong second single and wanted
to know if I wanted to be down and I was like, "Hell
yeah let's do it," and it took off from there. It
was like wow, shocked everywhere from me and the producers
to Chamillionaire, everybody we were sitting back like
"Wow, this is crazy."
There has been so much Internet buzz about the Swizz
Beats album and the Interscope deal what lead you all
to release "Thug Stories" on Koch before the
Interscope album?
Krazie
Bone-Well basically, we had that deal
with Koch before we even signed the Interscope situation.
We had been dealing with Swizz Beats for awhile but we
had a situation with Koch because we had known the owners
for years like since our career started because they used
to be with Relativity and we had been signed to Relativity
when we first signed to Ruthless so we have a real strong
relationship with them and they came to us like "Let's
put a Bone album out." We weren't doing anything
at the time so we were like "Yeah let's do that."
A few things came up in our schedule and things lingered
on and on but we couldn't put the album out when we wanted
to. Finally, we had to hurry up and put the album out
because Interscope wanted us to put that album out so
we could move on with the other album.
You all have so many hits what are some of your favorite
Bone Thugs songs?
Krazie
Bone-One of my favorite songs is "First
Of The Month," another one is "Dayz of Our Lives,"
and you know "Body Rot," stuff like that. My
two favorites are "First of The Month," and
"Dayz of Our Lives."
How did you all end up hooking up with Phil Collins
for the song "Home." That was like big for me
because he doesn't seem like the type to do that.
Krazie
Bone-That's the same thing I was thinking
when the idea came up. I'm a Phil Collins fan. I used
to bump all his music and I was listening to his CD one
day and that song came on and when the beat came on I
made a rap to it. I just kept his hook and did a verse
on it. I let people hear it and they were like, "Man
we need to use this song, why don't we put this song out
on the Bone album." So they put their parts on it
and then it was time to get it cleared and the first thing
they said was "No." They were like it's never
going to go down but we were like at least try before
you shoot it down. Our managers at the time they were
real cool with Phil Collin's ex-managers. They gave Phil
a call and first he said he wasn't going to be able to
do it and then he said he would participate in the video
if we came to Switzerland. To get Phil Collins on the
song, yeah we're there. He was like the coolest dude ever.
We were out there kicking it with him and he gave us history
on us and we gave him history on us. It was real cool.
I was real shocked that he got on there and we have a
lot of love for Phil Collins right now. It's a mutual
respect.
One album I liked that I don't hear people talk about
is the BTNH Resurrection album. What do you remember about
making that album?
Krazie
Bone-Man, I remember that it was a lot
of commotion coming around just as a group and at the
record company. It was around the time my first solo album
was out. I just remember it being real, real hectic. Everybody
was just moving fast. It was a good album but it's one
of my least favorite because of everything on my end,
everything I was looking at it was a lot of confusion.
I know you have the Thug Stories album out now but what
is Bone up to. Are you promoting that album or finishing
up the other album? What's up with Bone Thugs for now?
Krazie
Bone-Basically, doing both. We are promoting
that album and at the same time we are finishing the Interscope
album. We are promoting the Koch album by doing interviews
and stuff like that and we've also been on the road. We
just got off of a tour promoting the Koch album and we
just came back from Canada. We are doing it all in one.
When we aren't touring we are in the studio.
In like 1995-1996 you all were like the biggest rap group
in the world. What was that time like?
Krazie
Bone-It was crazy. It was kind of like
unreal. Especially, from where we come from. If people
would have knew us before we came out as Bone Thugs N
Harmony its like wow. It would really be like you all
came a long, long way. We came from beyond nothing so
for us to go from nothing to being one of the biggest
rap groups in the world it was like a surreal feeling.
We actually didn't even realize it until later on in our
careers because we were so used to being on the streets
and we were so ghetto-fied we didn't even pay attention
to it until people were like "You all sold so many
records, and you all did this," it was like man.
So it all just hit us in the face like damn.
Are you all still able to keep in touch with Flesh n Bone?
Krazie
Bone-We have his address and write him
every now and then to see how he is holding up. He's also
on the new Interscope album.
Has the song writing process or have the harmonies changed
since Bizzy left the group?
Krazie
Bone-The only thing that has changed
as far as us making the music is you don't hear his part.
What people don't realize is Bizzy was never involved
with the hook line or the harmonies on the albums. Almost
never. The most input he had on our albums was maybe our
first two albums Creepin on a Come Up and E-Ternal.
After that it was hard to get Bizzy in the studio
to do a damn humm on a record. It was that difficult so
most of that stuff you hear on that album is really just
us three with the exception of Flesh N Bone on some of
the stuff. That's what a lot of people don't understand.
When it came to us harmonizing together he was almost
always never there. What's missing is his presence and
his verse.
When can we expect the Interscope album?
Krazie
Bone-2007. January/February we just
don't want to rush anything. We know this is a very important
album for us right now. A lot of our earlier projects
were rushed. The Resurrection project was rushed,
Thug World Order was rushed; all those albums were
rushed to me because they were trying to get the albums
out to make their quota or to do whatever they had to
do but Interscope is respecting us as artists so they
are letting us have all our creativity and input in the
album and we didn't have that before.
Krazie Bone interview copyright Dorrie
Williams-Wheeler, and Thabiz.com 2006
Dorrie Williams-Wheeler is the author of Be
My Sorority Sister Under Pressure and the Unplanned
Pregnancy Book for Teens and College Students. She is
the founder of Thabiz.com
and Imissthe80s.com
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Akon interview
may not be reprinted, copied or distribute without permission.
You may link to this interview.Interview copyright Dorrie
Williams-Wheeler, thabiz.com November 2006.
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