Bone Thugs-n-Harmony will head back to their hometown of Cleveland on August 11, where they’ll be greeted with their own street. According to Rock The Bells, the intersection of E. 99th Street and St. Clair Avenue will be renamed “Bone Thugs-n-Harmony Way” in honor of the trailblazing Hip-Hop group. Led by the Spread the Love Foundation, Cleveland City Councilman Anthony Hairston and Ward 10, the street-naming ceremony takes place from noon to 2 p.m. local time.
It’s a full circle moment for the group. Bone Thugs’ sophomore album E. 1999 Eternal was named after the same area. It was there Krayzie, Layzie, Wish, Bizzy and Flesh honed their rap skills and earned some hard-won wisdom. As Krayzie describes it, that particular block was “dangerous” and they had to have their guard up at all times.
“Growing up on that street was crazy,” Krayzie Bone told RTB. “We had many, many adventures on that street. We got in so much trouble. Our street was 99th and St. Clair, but we renamed our street because of the two nines—the 99—we called it ‘Double Glock.’ I remember we shot the streetlights out on the street so the police would no longer ride down it. At night, they would only come to the corner of the street, shine their lights down there and keep driving past. They wouldn’t come down the street. Every time they would have somebody fix the light, we’d take it right back out with either a BB gun or a little .22 rifle.”
He continued, “Everything really did birth who we really were in that era. We had started rapping together back in junior high school, then it carried over to high school until we got out of school. When we get out of school that’s when all of us were on 99th. We was definitely focused on our music around the time we was on 99th for sure.”
Following the street-naming ceremony, Bone Thugs is expected to perform at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On August 12, Bone Thugs will descend on the Glenville Festival at Sam Miller Park then join LL COOL J’s The F.O.R.C.E. Tour at the Rocket Mortgage Field House.
“Just to see all these things taking place is incredible,” Krayzie added. “Now is the time in our career where we’ve started to sit back and really take everything we’ve done in and recognize the foundation we’ve laid down. Other people are starting to recognize who did what and what we really did in this Hip-Hop industry. I was never worried about receiving accolades or people not knowing what we brought to the business because it’s all in due time. It’s going to come around for Bone.
“People ask me all the time, ‘Why people don’t show you no respect?’ I tell them I feel very respected in the industry. Just because people don’t mention our name in every best rapper list doesn’t mean the industry doesn’t respect us. When I come across all my peers, colleagues, other artists and celebrities, they all show Bone crazy love—from young to old. We don’t have to be mentioned in every conversation to feel like we’re being respected. I know the respect and love is there.”