Layzie and Bizzie Bone:
The Bone Brothers

Release Date: 22 February 2005

Reviewed By: Jonathan Street

1. Intro

2. Like Me

3. What's Friends

4. Dick Rider

5. No Rules

6. Felicia (Skit)

7. Give it to me

8. Need Your Body

9. Complicated

10. Hip Hop Baby

11. Real Life

12. Blow You Away

13. Str8 Ridaz

14. Every Day

The Game - The Documentary
Read Review

Bone Thugs N Harmony exploded onto the hip-hop scene in the mid-90s with their debut E.P. ‘Creepin on ah Come Up’ (1994), led by their jump-off single ‘Thuggish Ruggish Bone,’ on Eazy-E’s Ruthless Records.  At a time when East and West Coast rap releases pretty much monopolised the hip-hop airwaves and sales charts, the Mid-West based, Cleveland natives topped Billboard charts Stateside. Their debut album ‘E 1999 Eternal’ (1995), named as a tribute to their recently deceased mentor Eazy, went on to sell a staggering four million copies in the U.S. alone.

Despite ‘E1999’ being their only successful album to date, they have appeared on collaborations alongside slain rap legends 2-Pac and Biggie Smalls respectively and garnered a Grammy for their cross over hit ‘Tha Crossroads’.  

The Bone Brothers (Layzie and Bizzy Bone) eponymously titled, debut long player sees the return of the trademark double and triple time sung/rapped Bone Thugs sound. The album blasts off with the opening cut ‘Like Me’, which sees the Bone Brothers immediately harboring visions of grandeur. Despite being out of the game for a good few years, the track in question chastises wannabes for biting their sound and strangely enough, their dress sense. The mean mugged, thug posturing continues on the following track ‘What Friends?’ Accompanied by fellow Bone member Krayzie Bone, the Brothers Bone lambaste past acquaintances and ‘haters’ but as with the previous, and the proceeding track ‘**** Rider,’ the content lacks any form of substance or originality. The threats also sound all the less convincing when spat in the nursery rhyme-esque delivery of our Thuggish Ruggish friends.  

The remainder of the album is in a similar vein, yet hits a complete low when former 2Pac cohorts The Outlawz join the Bone Brothers on a track titled ‘Complicated.’ On this ill-conceived collaboration, they cringingly lift the chorus from Avril Lavigne’s pop smash of the same name, which results in an outcome as hideous as it sounds.  

While the production of Self and Deenucka, who man the boards for the majority of the album, fits well with the Bone Bothers fast tempo-ed rhymes, at times the recording and mastering of the album sounds, at the best, amateurish. It’s not until the final quarter of the album that something worth listening to is concocted and the final three tracks just about prevent the album from being a horrific disaster, but only just. 

You’d think that with an increasing emphasis on flow in modern day hip-hop, coupled with the fact that the East and West Coast vice grip on rap has been well and truly broken, that it would be a perfect time for Bone Thugs to launch a comeback. But, judging by this attempt, they may as well just hang up their mics now. The rhymes become increasingly monotonous as the album goes on and you’re just crying for someone to pick up the mic and grab your attention, but it just doesn’t happen. The only consolation Bone fans can grasp from this attempt is that at least a full group effort can’t sink to such lows. 

Rating: 2 out of 5 

Top Three Tracks: 

12) Blow You Away

13) Str8 Ridaz

14) Everyday

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z