E. 1999 Eternal

This album just turned 30. Holy crap I feel old.

Hi Son,

In 1987, Eric “Eazy-E” Wright started a record label called Ruthless Records. Easy-E had been a part of N.W.A., one of the trail blazers of gangsta rap. N.W.A. comprised of Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, DJ Yella, MC Ren and Arabian Prince. However, N.W.A. was short lived. The group fractured by losing Ice Cube at the end of 1989 and then would fully disband in 1991. Ice Cube and Dr. Dre would move onto having two of the best solo careers of any hip-hop artsts, hell any artists of any genre at the end of the 20th Century and into the new millenium. Eazy-E would go onto resuming a solo career he had before N.W.A. In 1993, a hip-hop group from Cleveland took a bus to southern California looking to introduce themselves to Eazy-E. The name of that group was B.O.N.E. Enterpri$e, but would later change their name to Bone Thugs-n-Harmony.

When Bone signed with Ruthless Records they had five members of the group: Bizzy Bone, Wish Bone, Layzie Bone, Krayzie Bone and Flesh-n-Bone. Under Ruthless they would first release an EP, “Creepin on ah Come Up” that had “Thuggish Ruggish Bone” as the hit single from the release. After that, they would record and release their first record as Bone Thugs-n-Harmony called E. 1999 Eternal. A little less than a year after the release of this record they would follow it up with a single called “Tha Crossroads.” I had heard of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony around the time they dropped E. 1999. I remember seeing their first hit single “1st of tha Month” as a music video on MTV. The track was really cool. What I first noticed was there was a uniqueness to Bone’s style. A lot of gangsta rap up to this point was very blunt and you could hear the outrage. Bone’s style was different. It was almost like they were singing the lyrics, but still maintaining a hip-hop intonation. The track would be nominated for a Grammy in 1996 and has been certified gold.

It wasn’t until Tha Crossroads had been released that I felt compelled to buy the album. The track listing starts out with “Da Introduction.” It begins with a a woman crying out the same sentence (yet inaudible) several times. Then a demonic sounding character introducing the group goes on after the sound of an explosion. Then it backs off, you hear a downpour of rain going into a piano and the lyric goes “Execution double nine style. Steady fillin’ them bodies underground” by Krayzie Bone. It’s a pretty laid back track in terms of the music, but the lyric is dark. The feeling throughout this album is dark, I’ve read it’s been termed as the horrorcore movement. This somber tone then goes into an agressive track, “East 1999”. This is probably my favorite on the album. It’s very direct and personifies the G-Funk style that had been developed by the West Coast scene.

The next track of note for me is “Down ‘71 (The Getaway).” It starts with Bizzy Bone getting sentenced to the electric chair by some white-sounding judge. Then it goes into a frantic beat where you pretty much feel Bizzy trying to run for his life. The other members of the group join in by trying to keep him from getting caught by the cops. It’s violent. There are police sirens and guns firing in the background throughout. Eventually they get into a getaway car and run to their hideout in the woods to keep Bizzy from getting caught. The end of the track has the chanting of “St. Clair,” which is a street referenced adjacent to E. 99th St. that they grew up around. A few more tracks and now we come up to the song that motivated me to buy the CD, “Crossroads.” I listen to it the first time and it sounds nothing like the song that had been getting played continuously on mainstream and MTV. There was something I had not been aware of. “Tha Crossroads” was not the same as “Crossroads.” I’ll explain why in a little bit. The song was a tribute to the death of Wally Laird III. It’s a very somber, yet energetic sounding track.

There’s an introlude track called “Me Killa” then hits the next three tracks which are all bangers. “Land of the Heartless”, “No Shorts, No Losses” and the aforementioned “1st of tha Month.” I really enjoy it when the track listing puts the albums first single near the middle of the list. It makes you stay on, because you know it’s coming rather than spending that track early and burning out the listener. Two tracks later is “Die Die Die” which is another chase scene that is even more frantic sounding than “Down ‘71 (The Getaway).” The last track I’ll mention is the closer “Shotz to Tha Double Glock.” The backstory on this track is a direct message to a rap duo called the “Dogg Pound” who Bone believed disrespected the death of another close associate of theirs.

Now back to the song that compelled me to buy E. 1999 Eternal in the first place. The album was released on July 25, 1995 which happened to be four months after the death of Eric “Eazy-E” Wright. Eazy had been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in February 1995. He would lose his life a month later on March 26, 1995. The person that the Dogg Pound had disrespected to motivate the track “Shotz to Tha Double Glock” was Eazy. After the loss of Eazy, the group decided to remake “Crossroads” as “Tha Crossroads.” It’s one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard, regardless of genre. The music video for “Tha Crossroads” wasn’t released until 11 months after the passing of Eazy. It’s one of the most memorable music videos I grew up with. Definitely the most memorable hip-hop music video. The video has a large man, wearing sunglasses and a trench coat acting as the grim reaper. The scenes throughout are gut wrenching. The last soul the reaper snatches is of a newborn, who he carries to the top of a mountain followed by the ghosts of past who were likely taken by him. He climbs to the top and removes his coat, which then shows two wings coming out from his back. An image of Eazy-E is then showed amogst the clouds in the sky. There are just so many visuals from this video that have been burned into my memory. It was an incredible tribute to not only Eazy-E, but all of those who Bone Thugs-n-Harmony lost up until that point. The “Godfather of Gangsta Rap” would only be on this earth for 30 years. His legacy continues to live on.

Love,

Dad