Strength & Loyalty | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | May 8, 2007 (US) | |||
Recorded | 2006–2007 | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 47:21 | |||
Label | ||||
Producer |
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Bone Thugs-n-Harmony chronology | ||||
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Singles from Strength & Loyalty | ||||
Aggregate scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Metacritic | (74/100) link |
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
Allmusic | link |
AllHipHop | link at the Wayback Machine (archived May 12, 2007) |
DJBooth | link |
Entertainment Weekly | (B+) link |
HHNLive | link at the Wayback Machine (archived May 15, 2007) |
HipHopDX | link |
RapReviews | link |
Rolling Stone | link at the Wayback Machine (archived July 15, 2007) |
The Source | |
XXL | (L) link |
Strength & Loyalty, originally titled The Bone Thugs Story, is the seventh studio album by American hip hop group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, released on May 8, 2007. It was Bone Thugs-n-Harmony's first major album after an absence of nearly five years. The album contains guest appearances by Akon, Autumn Rowe, Bow Wow, Felecia, Fleetwood Mac (sampled), Mariah Carey, Swizz Beatz, The Game, Twista, will.i.am, and Yolanda Adams. Producers include Akon, DJ Toomp, Jermaine Dupri, Mally Mall, Neo Da Matrix, Pretty Boy & Bradd Young, Street Radio, Swizz Beatz, The Individuals, Ty Fyffe, and will.i.am. The executive producer of the album was Swizz Beatz. Bizzy Bone was not featured on the album. Then imprisoned member Flesh-n-Bone was only featured on a track entitled "Into The Future" which did not make the album and also due to his incarceration did not make the album cover.
The album debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200, with 119,000 copies sold. [1] It has since gone on to be certified gold by the RIAA, having sold over 500,000 copies within the US to date. [2] [3]
The first single was "I Tried", which features Akon, and was also produced by him. The single was released on February 16, 2007. On March 7, the video officially debuted on Yahoo! Music, and on March 17, it debuted on BET's 106 & Park . The second single was "Lil Love", which features Bow Wow and Mariah Carey, and was produced by Jermaine Dupri. The single was released in June 2007, while its video was premiered on July 5, on 106 & Park.
Strength & Loyalty received generally positive reviews from music critics, praising the production of the album and Bone's ability to "reinvent themselves with just 3 members." David Jeffries of Allmusic gave the album 3 and a half stars out of a possible 5, stating "This 2007 edition of Bone is missing members Flesh-N-Bone (thanks to incarceration) and Bizzy Bone (thanks to him being Bizzy Bone) and it shows. As a trio Krayzie, Layzie, and distant third Wish are a solid crew, able to deliver good weekend numbers like "Bump in the Trunk," "Lil Love," and "C-Town" (they never forget Cleveland) along with polished gangsta tracks like "I Tried." In the big picture, Bizzy and Flesh are missed, but what's remarkable about Strength & Loyalty is how it makes the listener forget they're missing while in the moment. Numerous melodious hooks in the easy-rolling Bone tradition fog the memory, and guest stars are brought in at just the right moments. Mariah speaks to the commercial possibilities Bone always had, while the Game speaks to how they seemed to never leave the streets. Every song is at least solid and the album flows very well, making it one of the better-built efforts from the house of Bone in nearly a decade. Problem is, this album could have twice the star power and it wouldn't make up for how important Bizzy's strange voice was for the overall chemistry. Strength & Loyalty doesn't overcome its challenges; it just sidesteps them and works hard to reward fans for a decade of patience. It's as good as it can be, and better than expected." Simon Vozick-Levinson of Entertainment Weekly of gave the album a "B+", stating "These Midwestern-rap pioneers sound more focused than they have in a decade. Much of the credit for the revitalized sound on their seventh LP, Strength & Harmony belongs to producers like Swizz Beatz, will.i.am, and Akon, who deftly flip samples from sources as disparate as Bobby Womack and Fleetwood Mac. Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s lyrics, too, are impressively crafted, tempering rough bluster with humble spirituality and calling to mind their classic mid-’90s hits — a pleasant surprise after years of diminishing returns." Decades-long Bone heads need not worry about total change, though. On the Neo Da Matrix–tracked gem “C-Town,” fellow spitfire Twista tag teams with the crew atop an airy bed of whistles and sonic hypnosis. The strongest moment of seamless old meets new comes on the head-spinning “Flowmotion,” a remake of a cut from their 1993 indie project Faces of Death. Backed by newcomers the Individuals’ intense strings, all three members’ flows reach new levels of velocity, especially Krayzie's: “I’m coming at you with a sound like thunder, strike like lightning/Hit them and they wonder where these thuggish ruggish niggas came from.”
Matt Baron of XXL (magazine) gave the a "L" (Large) rating, stating "Don’t call it a complete comeback, however. While Krayzie and Layzie show and prove, Wish’s inferior skills frequently emerge as well. Take his infantile wordplay on the Jermaine Dupri–produced radio shot “Little Love” (“Not trying to say that you’re about that paper/But me and you, yes, we’re about that paper”), which makes guest Bow Wow sound superlyrical. Further downgrading the album are scattered, drowsy soundtrack lapses (DJ Toomp's bland bass guitars on “Sounds the Same,” for example) and stunted creativity (the “been there, shot that” murder taunts of “9mm”). Through attempts at experimentation, such as the Fleetwood Mac–sampling rock/rap hybrid “Listen to the Wind Blow,” Bone clearly display a hunger for relevance. And as evidenced by the solemn “Crossroads”-comparable single “I Tried,” their knack for genreless harmonies is still intact. Yet, with the final product sounding slightly uneven, some fine-tuning would have done these Bones good."
Credits adapted from the album's liner notes. [4]
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Producer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|---|
1. | "Flowmotion" |
| The Individualz | 3:09 |
2. | "Bump in the Trunk" (featuring Swizz Beatz) |
| The Individualz | 4:25 |
3. | "Wind Blow" |
|
| 4:18 |
4. | "I Tried" (featuring Akon) |
|
| 4:47 |
5. | "Lil' Love" (featuring Mariah Carey & Bow Wow) |
|
| 3:52 |
6. | "C-Town" (featuring Twista) |
| Neo da Matrix | 5:05 |
7. | "Order My Steps (Dear Lord)" (featuring Yolanda Adams) |
|
| 3:57 |
8. | "Streets" (featuring The Game & will.i.am) |
| will.i.am | 4:21 |
9. | "9mm" |
| Street Radio | 4:43 |
10. | "Gun Blast" |
| Ty Fyffe | 3:37 |
11. | "Candy Paint" (featuring Swizz Beatz & Autumn Rowe) |
| Swizz Beatz | 3:45 |
12. | "So Good So Right" (featuring Felecia) |
| Mally Mall | 3:35 |
13. | "Sounds the Same" |
| DJ Toomp | 4:25 |
14. | "Never Forget Me" (featuring Akon) |
|
| 4:46 |
No. | Title | Producer | Length |
---|---|---|---|
15. | "Just Vibe" | Pretty Boy | 4:24 |
No. | Title | Producer | Length |
---|---|---|---|
16. | "Bump In The Trunk (Remix)" |
| 4:12 |
# | Title | Samples |
---|---|---|
1. | "Flowmotion" | "Sky High" by Jigsaw |
3. | "Wind Blow" | "The Chain" by Fleetwood Mac |
6. | "C-Town" | "Trust in Me" by Lenny Williams |
8. | "Streets" | "Across 110th Street" by Bobby Womack |
10. | "Gun Blast" | "Living a Lie" by Cam'ron |
12. | "So Good So Right" | "So Good So Right" by Brenda Russell |
15. | "Just Vibe" (Best Buy Bonus track) | "Why Have I Lost You" by Cameo |
Weekly charts
| Year-end charts
|
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
United States (RIAA) [10] | Gold | 500,000^ |
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. |
E. 1999 Eternal is the second studio album by American hip hop group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, released July 25, 1995, on Ruthless Records. The album was released four months after the death of rapper Eazy-E, the group's mentor and the executive producer of the album. Both the album and single "Tha Crossroads" are dedicated to him. Following up on the surprise success of their breakthrough single "Thuggish Ruggish Bone", it became a popular album and received positive reviews from music critics, earning praise for the group's melodic rapping style. The album title is a portmanteau of Cleveland's eastside neighborhood centering on East 99th Street and St. Clair Avenue where the group is based and the then-future year 1999.
Bone Thugs-n-Harmony is an American hip hop group composed of rappers Bizzy Bone, Wish Bone, Layzie Bone, Krayzie Bone, and Flesh-n-Bone. Formed in 1991 in Cleveland, Ohio, the group signed to fellow American rapper Eazy-E's Ruthless Records in late 1993, on which they debuted with their EP Creepin on ah Come Up the next year. The EP included their breakout hit single "Thuggish Ruggish Bone". In 1995, the group released its second album E. 1999 Eternal, which included hits "1st of tha Month" and "East 1999". Their hit song "Tha Crossroads", a tribute to then-recently deceased mentor Eazy-E, won a Grammy Award in 1997.
BTNHResurrection is the fourth studio album by hip hop group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. The album was released on February 29, 2000, on Ruthless. It reached Platinum status within a month, but sales declined afterwards. Flesh-n-Bone was heavily featured on this album, appearing in 14 of the 15 tracks which was rarely seen on previous albums due to him not being signed to Ruthless with the rest of the group. This was Flesh-n-Bone's last appearance on a Bone Thugs-n-Harmony album for 10 years because he was convicted for assault with a firearm and criminal possession of a weapon in June 2000. Pleading guilty, he was sentenced to 11 years in prison, and was released in July 2008, re-appearing on the group's album as a performer on Uni5: The World's Enemy in 2010 unlike his appearance on the last track A Thug Soldier Conversation with DJ Uneek on the Thug World Order album when Flesh was incarcerated.
The Art of War is the third studio album by hip hop group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony which was released on July 29, 1997. The album sold 394,000 units in its first week of release. The album was certified quadruple Platinum by the RIAA in June 1998. It was the first double-album from Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. The album included the platinum-single "Look into My Eyes", and the gold-single "If I Could Teach the World". The whole album is produced by DJ U-Neek.
Bone Brothers is the self-titled debut studio album by American hip hop duo Bone Brothers, composed of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony members Bizzy Bone and Layzie Bone. It was released on February 22, 2005 via Koch Records. Production was handled by Dwayne "Deenucka" Johnson, Self and Mauly T, with Bizzy Bone, Steve Lobel and Layzie Bone serving as executive producers. It features guest appearances from Kareem, Outlawz, Treach, and several Mo Thugs members, such as Krayzie Bone, Felicia, Skant Bone, Stew Bone and Wish Bone. The album saw its release after the dismissal of Bizzy Bone from the group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony.
"Spit Your Game" is the second single by Notorious B.I.G. from his Duets: The Final Chapter album, a remixed album of Biggie Smalls' work. The song features guest appearances from Bone Thugs-n-Harmony's Krayzie Bone and Twista and sampled The Walker Brothers' "My Ship Is Coming In" from their Take It Easy with the Walker Brothers album. The single is a double A-side with "Hold Ya Head", a song which samples "Johnny Was" from Bob Marley's Rastaman Vibration album by his reggae band The Wailers and "Suicidal Thoughts" from Biggie's Ready to Die for his vocals.
"Look into My Eyes" is a song performed by American hip hop group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, written by members Krayzie Bone, Layzie Bone, Bizzy Bone and Wish Bone, Anthony Eugene Cowan, and producer Tim "DJ U-Neek" Middleton. It was released on June 3, 1997, via Ruthless and Relativity Records as the third single from Music from and Inspired by the "Batman & Robin" Motion Picture and lead single from Bone Thugs-n-Harmony's third studio album The Art of War. Recording sessions took place at Studio Cat and at U-Neeks Workshop in Los Angeles.
Ghetto Street Pharmacist is a solo album by DJ U-Neek, released in 1999. Krayzie Bone, Layzie Bone & Bizzy Bone, Dresta Tha Gangsta, Doggy's Angels, and Big Lurch make appearances on the album.
"East 1999" is Bone Thugs-n-Harmony's second single released in 1995 from their album E. 1999 Eternal. This is one of five songs on the album to feature member Flesh-n-Bone who wasn't signed to Ruthless with the rest of the group.
Thug Stories is the sixth studio album by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, released September 19, 2006 on Koch Records. It marked the first time Bone recorded as a trio for a full album, as Bizzy Bone was still ejected from the group. Upon release, the album sold 40,000 units in its first week, eventually peaking at number 25 on the Billboard 200 and number one on the Independent Album Charts. Thug Stories was the group's first major label LP length release since 2002's Thug World Order Ruthless Records. As of April 11, 2007, it has sold 92,465 copies.
"I Tried" (also known as "I Tried (So Hard)") is a song recorded by Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, released in February 2007 as the lead single from their album Strength & Loyalty. This particular song features Layzie Bone, Krayzie Bone and Wish Bone. The song features and was produced by Akon; Giorgio Tuinfort assisted the artists in writing the song.
"Lil L.O.V.E." is a song by hip hop group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony for their studio album Strength & Loyalty (2007). It features American singer Mariah Carey and rapper Bow Wow and was released as the second single from the album in 2007. The artists co-wrote the song with Shante Harris, James Phillips, and Jermaine Dupri; the latter is also the producer. In the chorus, Carey expresses her need for a 'Lil L.O.V.E' and 'T.I.M.E' from her suspected lover. In the United States, "Lil’ L.O.V.E." was released as a digital download on May 8, 2007. The song was officially released as a single in the U.S. on June 5, 2007.
"Foe tha Love of $" is the second single by Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, featuring Eazy-E, from their debut EP, Creepin on ah Come Up. The song was produced by DJ Yella and executive produced by Eazy-E. "Foe tha Love of $" was a huge success for the group, making it to #41 on the Billboard Hot 100, #37 on the Rhythmic Top 40 and #4 on the Hot Rap Singles. The music video is notable for being Eazy-E's last appearance in a music video before his death. The song was included in the soundtrack of the video game True Crime: Streets of LA, along with "Thuggish Ruggish Bone". DJ Screw has also remixed it on the 1996 mix "Chapter 24 - 9 Months Later".
T.H.U.G.S. is a compilation album by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. It was released in 2007 by Ruthless Records. It debuted on the Billboard US 200 at no.73, selling 15,000 in its first week.
Bone Brothers is an American hip-hop duo composed of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony members Layzie Bone and Bizzy Bone. The first Bone Brothers album was released in 2005. Bizzy Bone had parted ways from the group in 2003 over personal differences and business decisions. Bizzy Bone had always remained friendly with the group and collaborated on songs such as Lil Eazy's This Ain't A Game and Krayzie Bone's Getchu Twisted Remix. The Bone Brother's track Hip-Hop Baby contains four of the five members in the music video. In 2009 the whole group came together to record tracks for Uni5: The World's Enemy during the wake of Flesh-n-Bone's return from prison. Bone Brothers is an album series and not a name for Layzie Bone and Bizzy Bone collaboration albums. Albums like Still Creepin On Ah Come Up are excluded from the series. It is also conceivable of any pair or more Bone Thugs-N-Harmony members making a Bone Brothers album in the future.
The following list is a discography of production by Swizz Beatz, an American record producer and recording artist from The Bronx, New York. It includes a list of songs produced, co-produced and remixed by year, artist, album and title. With a career spanning three decades, Swizz Beatz has contributed production on over 160 albums, including studio projects, compilations, soundtracks and mixtapes. Beatz has also produced 81 singles, a number of them have received gold certification or higher by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
BTNH Worldwide is an independent record label started by hip hop group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. Composed of Krayzie Bone, Flesh-N-Bone, Layzie Bone, Bizzy Bone and Wish Bone, BTNH Worldwide was created because of freedom of album concept not being handled adequately by previous record labels such as Ruthless Records and Interscope Records. BTNH Worldwide is the home for Bone Thugs-n-Harmony and affiliates such as Mo Thugs artist, Mo Thugs West artist and The Life Ent. The new record label has "a brand new platform coming to show what kind of hit-makers they Bone Thugs-n-Harmony are." BTNH Worldwide is a label built to bring the harmonizing sound Bone Thugs-n-Harmony are known for. Without any label politics, they are allowed to expand on their music and make decisions of their own to satisfy the fans. The move to Warner Brothers has not proved fruitful as due to marketing reasons the five members' chosen track list for Uni5: The World's Enemy was later changed to suit the distributor's failed attempt at re-establishing the group in the mainstream.
Uni5: The World's Enemy is the eighth studio album by Bone Thugs-n-Harmony released on May 4, 2010, on BTNH Worldwide, Asylum Records and Reprise Records. The mixtape, The Fixtape Vol. 3: Special Delivery features cuts from this album.
The Art of War: World War III is the ninth studio album by hip hop group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. It was released on December 10, 2013, on Seven Arts Music and BTNH Worldwide. The album serves as the sequel to their quadruple platinum double album, The Art of War.
New Waves is the tenth studio album by American hip hop group Bone Thugs. It was released on June 23, 2017, by Entertainment One Music. The album only consists of 2 out of 5 members of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. The album features a large selection of guest appearances, including Stephen Marley, Tank, Jesse Rankins, Kaci Brown, Jazze Pha, the other Bone members, Jonathan Davis from nu metal band Korn, Bun B, Uncle Murda, Yelawolf, IYAZ, Eric Bellinger and more.