Two years after a poor debut, Eazy-E signs Bone Thugs-n-Harmony for his Ruthless Records and four months after his death, the group's second studio album is released. DJ U-Neek produces the entire album, co-produced by the group, together with Kenny McCloud and Tony C. The only guests are fellow citizens Poetic Hustla'z & Graveyard Shift who join the group in a dissing to Tha Dogg Pound which concludes the tape. The album is performed by Bizzy Bone, Wish Bone, Layzie Bone, Krayzie Bone, and Flesh-n-Bone.
Despite the group being from Cleveland, the album is a big West Coast effort, both in music and lyrics. The rhythms are minimal, lean, decent, composed of dry and hard drums, often downtempo, but also midtempo and uptempo, melodic, dark, funky samples, often from rnb songs, pianos, keyboards, and bass lines, in addition to the g-funk synths found almost everywhere, they sound shrill and random, somehow always accessible. The production is a decent imitation of that West Coast, more rnb than g-funk, with cheap and simplistic choices. From the point of view of the lyrics, the boys aren't inspired: their arguments are typical of the gangsta rap present at that time in the West Coast, murder, drugs, violence, weed, money, weapons, various gangsterisms.
What allows them to stand out completely from the rest of the hip-hop scene is the execution of the lyrics: the guys sing their verses most of the time, alternating a few moments of spitting with an ultra-fast rap. Most of the record is sung, and it's sung in a cheerful, loose, fluid, youthful way, creating a contrast with the texts written by the group. The strength of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony is in their rnb singing and they sing really badly, they're out of tune. Their rapping is melodic and quiet, soft style, none of them are a decent lyricist and, having a very similar flow to each other, they're indistinguishable, and almost incomprehensible to distinguish one from the other. For everyone. Even for themselves: it's almost impossible to tell who is doing what in "Shotz to tha Double Glock", a Bone Thugs posse featuring affiliate groups Poetic Hustla'z and Graveyard Shift, with all members of the Bone Thugs perform, plus Tony Tone, Tombstone, Boogie Nikke, Sin, Gates and D-Lo (presumably). Maybe Bizzy Bone isn't there.
The songs all sound the same and, apart from the singles, there are no real strong points. The soundscape created by DJ U-Neek is functional to the boys' rnb singing and theirs is an atypical gangster rap, in which, for example, misogyny is excluded. Singles lead the entire project. The first is "1st of tha Month", which ranks on three continents and was certified gold in a few months, being nominated for a 1996 Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group and losing. It follows "East 1999", one of the most successful funky productions, greeted by a slow and effortless melodic delivery of the group. Finally, "Tha Crossroads", their biggest hit: originally, a song dedicated to a deceased friend with the title "Crossroad", then changed following the death of their mentor Eazy-E. The song is included in subsequent editions as a bonus track and in mid-1996, the group decides to release it as a single: it debuts at second place in the Hot 100 and remains first for two months, ranking worldwide, becoming the best-selling single of the year in New Zealand (platinum) and one of the best-selling of the year and decade in the USA, where it's certified double platinum. Additionally, it won the 1997 Grammy Awards as Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group.
Released by Ruthless Records and Relativity, the album is a huge commercial success: it's #1 on the Billboard 200 and ranks globally, ripping certifications on three continents and going platinum four times in mid-1996. The effort is universally praised by critics, except for Christgau's contrarian, who demolishes it. Overall, the project is mediocre and decent, bloated and sluggish, even the singles, isolated from the rest, play bland and poorly. Few acts have used this kind of formula and effortlessly smooth rnb delivery, but the Bone Thugs-n-Harmony make sure you disinterest in them after about a quarter of an hour. It's an irregular, almost trashy tape, gangster rnb, a rnb album with a rnb soul and a pinch, a sprinkle of casual rap: answers the fetishists' question "what would a Cypress Hill album look like if it were poorly sung?", but it's cumbersome and exhausting at 68 minutes.
Rating: 6/10.
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