20 Years Later, we celebrate Eazy-E and Ruthless Records

Eazy-E's Ruthless Records Celebrates 20 Years as an Indie Pioneer

Gail Mitchell

Let's hitch a ride on the music time machine back to the year 1987. Whitney Houston, Madonna and Michael Jackson rule the No. 1 hit parade on the pop charts, along with rockers U2, Bon Jovi and Bob Seger. In control on the R&B front are Jackson again, baby sister
Janet, Luther Vandross and Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam.

Still in its formative years, rap is mostly an East Coast happening. Eight years have elapsed since the Sugarhill Gang rhymed its way to commercial success in 1979 with "Rapper's Delight." And it's three years since Afrika Bambaataa and Soul Sonic Force landed on "Planet Rock."

Now rapper LL Cool J has nabbed his first No. 1 single—"I Need You"—just a year after Run-D.M.C. stepped up its legacy with top 10 singles "My Adidas" and "Walk This Way."

It's in this climate that co-founders Eric "Eazy-E" Wright and music industry veteran Jerry Heller decide to launch rap label Ruthless Records. Little did anyone know that the upstart indie would put West Coast and gangsta rap on the map, let alone house a stable of gold- and platinum-selling acts, among them pioneering rap group N.W.A. (Niggaz With Attitude)

Read the full story here.

Courtesy of Billboard.com

Flesh N Bone Released from Prison

After serving a near 10 year sentence, “Flesh N Bone”, Stanley Howse was released yesterday from a California State Penitentiary. Howse was originally sentenced for threatening an individual with an AK-47.

Upon Flesh’s release he immediately reunited with the other four members of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Bizzy, Karyzie, Layzie and Wish Bone, and entered the studio as a full group for the first time in a decade.

Bone has reunited to begin creating an upcoming album to be released on Interscope Records, through Swizz Beat’s Full Surface imprint. Bone broke mainstream boundaries with their single, “Thuggish Ruggish Bone” in 1994 on Eazy-E’s Ruthless Records Label.

Courtesy of HHLO.net