Those of you who have been reading for a while are aware that Bone Thugs-N-Harmony was my favorite rap group in high school. Despite my Thug Devotion, I never felt pressured to smoke [entirely too much] weed, break a loved one out of prison, sell a dummy rock or do any of the other incredibly thuggish ruggish shit the band rapped and harmonized about. I just loved the music. I guess I’m one of the lucky ones who have always been able to stay grounded in reality despite the influences of my surroundings. I’m not saying this shit for a pat on the back or a stroke of the balls. But, I think saying as much is an important precursor to my thoughts on this Bone Thugs-N-Harmony interview on Angela Yee’s program I stumbled upon last week. I fear for the health of any remaining Bone heads who still hang onto their every word.

The brothers Bone seem to believe that Eazy-E’s death is part of some kind of conspiracy to silence him. Despite owning every N.W.A. album and a couple of Eazy-E’s solos, I’ve always felt "the world’s most dangerous rap group" was artistically castrated when Ice Cube went solo. Cube took every bit of logic and political relevance with him to New York and left behind a group of angry, confused “niggaz” who made the generally banal and vapid EFIL4ZAGGIN. I don’t know how familiar some of you youngsters are with the N.W.A. catalog, but EFIL4ZAGGIN is like a soggy Gucci Mane throwaway mixtape compared to Straight Outta Compton. The record is full of zaggin shit, indeed. My question now being, what exactly was there to silence? Was all that Eazy-E rap about fucking everything that moved and killing anybody who looked at his jheri curl the wrong way supposed to be that new Frederick Douglass shit? If anyone from the N.W.A. lineage was spitting some shit that needed to be silenced, it was the “Benedict Arnold” they once called Cube.

Please humor me, Bone Thugs. Did Eazy-E get pricked with the Adebisi “comb” in some elaborate play to take over a depleted Ruthless Records? With all due respect, no one knew what gold Eazy had in Bone Thugs-N-Harmony until Creepin’ on ah Come Up went multi-platinum out of nowhere. What’s the conspiracy behind Bizzy Bone missing 90% of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony videos? Was someone trying to silence him? Or was he just wylin' the fuck out and suffering the consequences?

[Blogger's Note: "Wylin'" is a variation of "wilding". I guess that translates to "wallin'" for native Worldstar-speakers.]

Part of me wants to believe there’s something to the conspiracy therories Wish, Layzie and Krayzie only allude to. They were around Eazy-E. They knew and loved the man. He changed their lives. Unfortunately, that’s what all of this really sounds like—the misguided ramblings of some men troubled by the abrupt loss of their mentor. I can’t give their words any weight when all we get is “he couldn’t have died that fast” and that he saw “Jerry Heller’s doctors”. Krayzie focuses on Eazy-E’s appearance while Layzie discusses Eazy’s strength immediately prior to the rapid deterioration. That’s the kind of denial that only contributes to the ignorance and lack of education about HIV and AIDS. That’s what’s killing us off quicker than carelessness. For the Thugs to have even included such asinine points nullifies my ability to award the benefit of doubt.

Eazy-E promoted sexual irresponsibility and died of AIDS-related complications. If he was that irresponsible with sex, he probably thought he was invincible and contracted the disease back when everyone still thought only gay men could get it. Is it too far-fetched a notion that he never got tested until he got a cough that wouldn’t go away? I don’t think so. That’s the beauty of HIV. You could be Magic Johnson-strong for a very long time, all the while slinging the dirty dick around with reckless abandon. If you don’t get tested, you may never know you have the shit until you go down exactly how Eazy did.

Again, I love Bone, even certifiably insane-ass Bizzy. But I’m surprised they believe and say with straight, surprisingly sober faces that there’s a conspiracy behind Eazy-E’s HIV/AIDS contraction. Maybe they’ve transcended to that point of permanent high. However, they should recognize the potential harm in making such allegations without providing any evidence or reasoning. There are a lot of ignorant-ass listeners out there for whom such logic only exacerbates their twisted ideas on how to combat “the monster”.

Questions? Comments? Requests? Worried about your own Def Dick? ron@ronmexicocity.com

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