Bone Thugs N Harmony: Flesh-N-Bone, Bizzy Bone, Layzie Bone, Krayzie Bone, Wish Bone

The often imitated but never duplicated Grammy-award winning rap group Bone Thugs & Harmony (BTNH) held a press conference and a listening party in Los Angeles recently to announce the reunion of all five original members of the group (Krayzie Bone, Layzie Bone, Bizzy Bone, Wish Bone and Flesh-N-Bone) plus their first full album together, UNI 5: The World’s Enemy, which will be released on December 15 through their imprint, BTNH Worldwide/Warner Bros.

Bone Thugs are one of hip-hop’s most commercially successful acts, with 50 million albums sold worldwide.

Krayzie was the first to chime in on the new album “It’s all new material. Anything that we would have done before would be absolute. It’s a whole new experience (with all five members back) and you’re getting all new material.”

Bone Thugs on the set of their new single, “See Me Shine”

Layzie also talked about a new style that Bone developed called uniVERSE. “We developed a unique style of flow. Instead of each one of us spitting 16 bars, we figured out how to use all five of us within 16 bars, which is a very intricate process”.

Layzie and the rest of the group kept mentioning the importance of Flesh being back in the fold. Flesh was incarcerated for nine years for an assault charge in a California correctional facility. “We made many attempts to bring the group back together. It was us knowing that Flesh was coming home that ignited the unity. Flesh is the eldest member. Flesh was strong enough to carry the name of Bone through the California Penal System. We had to show Flesh that we were a unit and now that he is back we can show the world that we are united.”

The group’s classic debut album, E. 1999 Eternal

Wish Bone continued by saying, “It is the unity that we lacked. Think about how a song is composed and how we make or music. Flesh being back allows us to make music that we couldn’t do before”.

Krayzie also talked about how jumping ship from Interscope to Warner was integral to this project. “Interscope wanted the project to sound a certain way and basically told us it was either their way or the highway. By the blessings of God, we got out of our contract and we went to Warner, who gave us the creative control that was needed for us to make this process a success. We made this a Bone album. We went back and got some of the producers that Eazy E put us around like DJ Unique, LT Hutton, Thin C, etc. But this album will be all Bone. No big name producers, no nothing. It’s all Bone. No features. A beat is a beat. We make the beat!”

Asked about the maturation of the five-man chemistry of Bone, Bizzy said: “I don’t think it’s about maturity. We breathe music, we eat music, we live music. Those 30 year old’s who listened to Bone 17 years ago still can listen to Bone. We are forever young. We are a fountain of youth. Every time you hear “Thuggish Ruggish Bone”, you gonna remember that exact moment when you first heard that song and its going to sound exactly the same as it did 20 years ago.”

After the press conference, Bone had a listening session to preview some of their tracks for their album. They haven’t selected official songs or titles, but from what we heard we can tell you the production is stellar and Bone Thugs and Harmony are back and on top of their sound.

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