Events

The Toronto Blue Jays are in first place, N.W.A. is relevant, and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony are touring in support of E. 1999 Eternal. We didn’t time travel back to the 1990s, but it sure does feel like it. This Friday, September 11, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony will make a stop in Niagara Falls at the Rapids Theatre to perform E. 1999 Eternal, their best-selling album from 1995, in its entirety. This week we had a chat with Krayzie Bone to discuss what sparked this tour, fan response, and what the group has been up to.

Why did the group eventually decide to take E. 1999 Eternal on the road and perform the album in its entirety?

Partly because it’s never been done before and we were getting heavy requests for it. For our fans, that’s their all-time favorite album and it’s mine too. We decided let’s just go out and do the Eternal tour, and we’ve been getting great responses from it.

How have fans been reacting to this tour?
They’re crazy excited. We’ve been packing the venues and they’ve been coming out every night to support us. It feels like the album was just released and we’re promoting it now.

This tour is a tribute to one album. Do you get to work anything else into your set?
It depends on the show and how many minutes we have for our set. We usually do the entire album, and by the time we do that, the crowd is happy. We might throw in a tribute song with Eazy-E, Tupac, or Biggie. If the crowd is hype enough, that’s the extra treat we give them.

What else have you guys been up to lately?
We’re actually working on a lot of things. We’re on this world tour and getting ready to release another Bone Thugs Cypher. We did the first one like a year ago, so we’re getting ready to do another one. We’re also working on several other projects. Me and Bizzy Bone are working on a duet album, me and Layzie Bone are working on a duet album, and I’m getting ready to release my final solo album, Chasing the Devil, in September. Everyone is all over the place, working on different endeavors. We’re staying busy, man.

What’s your take on the current rap scene?
I’m not going to lie. I like some of the music, but there’s no direction. Certain artists like Kendrick Lamar, Drake, and J. Cole are the ones who stand out now because they have their own distinct sound and talk about different things on their albums—kind of like 1990s artists did. I think there’s no direction for all the other artists out there. A lot of people tend to follow what they see or want to sound like what they hear. I think there’s a lack of originality.

What artists should people be paying attention to that might be relatively unknown today?
First and foremost, I have to say that I love A$AP Rocky. Also, I have a label, The Life Entertainment, and have been working on artists. I just released product on two artists. One of them is from Cleveland and named Caine; he just released an album called Addiction. I have another artist called Pozition and he also just released something that’s real.

Is there anything you’d like to end with?
Honestly, I just want to give a shout out to all of our fans for being so loyal and supportive. They’ve been supporting us for the last 20 years we’ve been in this business. They’ve always been there for us. They were the ones who made the Bone brand strong and without them, we couldn’t even exist. I always show them much love because without them, it couldn’t happen.