Bone Thugs-N-Harmony

When they formed in 1991, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony were onto something new—their melody-first approach to hip-hop sounded particularly fresh and pointed to how rap would progress in the coming decades.

They started in Cleveland, where no top-selling hip-hop act had come from before, and their music was different from the outset: The quintet of Bizzy Bone, Flesh-N-Bone, Krayzie Bone, Layzie Bone, and Wish Bone specialized in intricate high-speed rhymes about street life that carried unusual melodic contours and multi-part harmonies.

West Coast G-funk, generous with hooks and indebted to ‘70s soul and funk, was a clear influence, so it made sense that Bone Thugs’ major break came courtesy of N.W.A.’s Eazy-E, who signed them to his Ruthless label.