Thirty Three Jones | Desktop Site
Back in 1989, a group of three kids from Queens, NY were blowing up the local club scene and eventually gained the attention of Jam Master Jay. A year later, they put together the song Ah, And We Do It Like This under the name Onyx. The appearance of the group, the beats they were using and even the lyrics were more a lot more like the Native Tongues than the hardcore rap group they would become.
After Ah, And We... failed to gain them much attention,the group added a fourth member (Sticky Fingaz) and remade their image. They shaved their heads, threw on some timberlands and black army fatigues, picked up some prop Uzis and started dropping some aggressive lyrics. Even their vocal sound became significantly more hardcore, sounding as if they were on the verge of losing their voices from shouting so much. In 1991 they released the album Bacdafucup, a classic gangster rap album. The definition of gangster rap has changed a bit since then -- instead of rapping about how many Bentleys they were buying from drug money, Onyx was talking about sticking people up and grabbing the gold chain off your neck. Their transition from a pseudo-Tribe Called Quest into this new, hardcore image was completed with Sticky Fingaz line in Stik 'N Muve:
Ain't Nothin' Funny, Hand Over The Money /
This ain't El Segundo, Its just the Four Bad Robbers from the Ghetto
Not surprisingly, Def Jam doesn't even acknowledge the original single from Onyx. From this song that Onyx put out before Bacdafucup and their careers after the group broke up, it becomes clear that this hardcore posturing was strictly a manufactured image. Sticky Fingaz is currently playing the role of Marvel Comics' Blade on Spike TV. Fredro Starr, after playing a role on Brandy's Moesha, most recently co-hosted a Dance Off show (Dance 360) with Nickelodeon's Kel. No stick up kids on that show. Hard to argue with the decision to change their image: Bacdafucup is a classic album, they all did well financially (though sadly original member Big DS died from cancer a couple of years ago), and their other albums were all decent. Once again, image triumphs over reality in hip hop.
Here's the original Onyx track Ah, And We Do It Like This:
(track after the jump -->)
5/5/2006 10:03:34 AM posted by Fresh