Both songs feature the rapper caroming around the track, demonstrating several different styles as if he’s reminding his audience, “Yes, bitch, the throne is still mine.”
The Current caught up with Bizzy Bone via phone ahead of his solo performance at Fitzgerald’s. We asked him to dive into what the BTNH crew’s relationship is to San Antonio and when we can expect a new album to drop.
You and the entire Bone Thugs-N-Harmony unit have been coming to San Antonio since the get-go. Even decades later, you're still here at least once a year. What's the relationship is between San Antonio and your music?
I think, over the years, San Antonio has been a great market for us. We have been a great group for San Antonio, and I think that relationship has built a friendship over the years as well as a certain love – [a] certain embracing factor between San Antonio and Bizzy Bone and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. It’s a blessing. We feel very blessed.
In your solo career, especially on your first album Heaven’s Movie, you delved into real personal issues like being molested and dealing with personal demons, which up until that point, I don’t think any rapper from the “gangster rap” era had really discussed. Did you catch any flak for going so deep on that album?
I never caught any flak. What started happening is I started getting Make a Wish Foundation requests from talk shows for people that were in a similar situation. I never caught any flak really at all, from anybody. Nobody trolled me ... Everybody’s got a story, so when I was able to tell my story and what makes me unique as a human being, and my trials and tribulations, others started opening up.
You can hear so much of that Bone Thugs style in today’s music, such as emcees rapping in triplets. How do you feel about these young artists appropriating parts of your style?
I mean, I look at it like this: first of all, it started when were so young. We were very young with this particular style. Each artist that I hear [now], I have a separate feeling for. I don’t clump them all together. The universal impact that [Bone Thugs-N-Harmony] has made, I’m grateful and thankful for. I’m grateful and thankful to not be a culture vulture, that we — Bone Thugs-N-Harmony the collective — put something back into the industry [with our style].
You’ve just released “Carbon Monoxide” and “Enigma” earlier this year, re-affirming for your audiences — and the haters — that you can expertly navigate a beat with your vocals. Are these coming out on a new album or mixtape?
As far as “Carbon Monoxide” and “Enigma,” it just started off by putting out singles. We have an album worth of singles, and it only makes sense to put the whole thing out as well. But we’re just putting out singles all year. We’re gonna add four to seven more songs then put out the entire project.
Tickets ($20-$50) are on sale and can be purchased here. Keep up with Bizzy Bone on Facebook at @iambizzybone
