Cleveland, OH · hip-hop

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony

2 upcoming festivals

Melodic-rap architects — the first to make harmony singing and double-time flow one seamless thing, with 'Tha Crossroads' still landing like a hymn.

Bone Thugs-n-Harmony formed in Cleveland in the early 1990s, built around Krayzie Bone, Layzie Bone, Bizzy Bone, Wish Bone and Flesh-n-Bone. They were signed by Eazy-E to Ruthless Records, and their early releases established a style that combined rapid, syncopated rapping with close vocal harmony — an approach that had few precedents in hip-hop and a great many imitators afterwards.

"Tha Crossroads," a tribute to Eazy-E and other lost friends, became their biggest single, and E. 1999 Eternal remains the record most associated with the group's murky, midwestern take on gangsta rap. Their catalogue also touches g-funk and darker, horrorcore-adjacent material.

hip-hop