R.I.P Eric Wright (
Easy-E). I remember hearing about his death back when I was in high school. I think I was like 14 (1995) or there about. It was just so sudden. A lot of people now don't know his impact in Hip Hop, and what he did. Hell, a lot of people don't even know about the impact of Bone Thugz-N-Harmony, who were signed to his Ruthless Records in the early/mid 90s.
Bone Thugz music was the shit in the mid 90s...it was out of this world. I remember using up a whole weekend to memorize the rhymes of their Crossroads song; they rapped super fast, and it was a struggle to keep up with what they were saying. SOHH recently caught up with
Flesh-N-Bone (the 5th on and off member.), and asked him who he considered the most underrated rapper in Hip Hop, and he said...
"That's a crazy question, I'm going to have to think about that. Right now, the first one that comes to my mind is Eazy-E. Eric Wright. Eric Wright is the pioneer of West Coast hip-hop. West Coast rap.
Gangsta rap. Period. He's underrated. We all understand what his demise
was and everything and that might have created some sort of hindrance of
him getting the recognition that he deserves but Eazy-E is responsible
for the whole section of West Coast hip-hop right now. Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, the list goes on and on. If there was no Eazy-E, there would be no Dr. Dre, there would be no Eminem, there would be no 50 Cent, there would be no Game, there would be no Nipsey Hu$$le. The list goes on and on. You feel what I'm saying? Eazy-E, Eric Wright, is the most underrated artist, in my mind, right now."
This is very true.
Eazy-E, along with his business partner,
Jerry Heller, signed N.W.A to Ruthless Records. back in 1986. In case you don't know, NWA consisted of
Eazy-E himself,
Ice Cube,
MC Ren,
Dr. Dre, and
DJ Yella. And you know N.W.A more or less started this Gangsta Shit!!!.
Ice Cube later broke out of the group (December 1989), and then
Dre took off too (1991). But, it all started with
Eazy-E and Ruthless Records. So, it's true, without Eazy-Z, there probably wouldn't have been an
Eminem.
"Em is really underrated because people have always been talking about him like, 'The White rapper Eminem' instead of just 'the rapper...Yeah, because the skin color thing is still there. He has so many skills and he's more hood than so many people out there, people still put the skin color before anything and don't give him enough credit. It's like people saying Elvis Presley was only famous because he was White. He had, y'know, the rhythm of James Brown but he had his own thing. He was Elvis. He wasn't just a White man. Things like that are going to be picked up between Black people and White people and anybody. It doesn't mean a person isn't great because they're influenced by something associated with another race. It doesn't matter." (Noisey)