Review Summary: The Bone family has all the tip-top ingredients needed to make a five-star meal. They just absolutely, totally fuck up the recipe somehow.
Those poor, poor Cleveland sports fans. They’ve gone forty-six years without a championship, which is the longest drought than any other city with at least three pro sports teams. The Indians last won in ’48, which is the second-longest baseball drought behind the Cubs, and the Browns last won in ’64, before the Super Bowl even EXISTED. Hell, the Cavs haven’t won any championships, and although they’re favored to win the Larry O’Brien this year, I don’t think they will. I mean, they have all the pieces. Epic superstar LeBron, heavy hitting big man Shaq, solid point guard Mo, a good coach in Mike Brown, and a deep bench. All the right ingredients are there, but I think they’ll just somehow mess it up. Cleveland families have a tendency to do that.
Technically speaking, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony should be my favorite group ever. With a thumbs up from one of my favorite rappers Eazy-E, lyrical mimicking of my all time favorite group Three 6 Mafia, lightning fast deliveries, and a good R&B/Soul smoke beat format, BTNH should make me do backflips. But, they don’t, and I have not a clue as to why. It’s easy to see why they’d be successful. I understand the theoretics of why they produced a quadruple platinum EP and won a Grammy. But literally, I don’t comprehend it. The soulful, raptor quick, half-singing, half-rapping of the Bone family seems great in principle, but comes off as boring. Their chill, spiritual smoke beat format – consisting of enlightened and creepy synths, dark and light piano samples, gentle percussion, and twinkles – just aren’t what they should be. And their lyrics entailing tales of drug use, violent acts and occult references aren’t that observably commendable for being ‘gangsta’ or ‘satanic.’
All their ingredients are EPIC, but are seemingly stale in their sub-qualities. Possibly the biggest waste of opportunity and talent I’ve ever witnessed. Some of the items on the list of hip-hop mysteries I find perplexing are “who killed Tupac?” and “who killed Biggie?” and “how can anybody like Soulja Boy?” Now, we might as well throw “how can I hate Bone Thugs-n-Harmony so much?” on there, too.
