Bone Thugs-N-Harmony Get Permanent Place on Hollywood Walk of Fame

Members of the Grammy-winning rap group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony — from left, Wish Bone, Bizzy Bone, Krayzie Bone, and Layzie Bone — are shown in this undated promotional file photo. The pioneering Cleveland group was honored Wednesday with the 2,851st star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (Photo: Ruthless Records / File)

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s Cleveland sound now has a permanent address in Hollywood.

The Grammy-winning rap group received the 2,851st star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Wednesday during a ceremony at 6126 Hollywood Blvd., where friends, family, fans and fellow hip-hop veterans gathered to celebrate one of rap’s most distinctive groups.

The honor came in the recording category, more than three decades after Krayzie Bone, Layzie Bone, Bizzy Bone, Wish Bone and Flesh-n-Bone turned rapid-fire flows, street harmonies and grief-soaked melody into a sound no one else could duplicate.

“Cleveland is in the house,” Jerry Newman, chair of the board of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, said as the ceremony opened.

Radio personality Big Boy hosted the ceremony, calling the day “beautiful” as fans lined the sidewalk in the July sun. He introduced the group as pioneers whose music brought national attention to Midwestern rap while helping shape the melodic, double-time style that still echoes through hip-hop and R&B.

“There’s a lot of people that pay homage and there’s a lot of sloppy carbon copies,” Big Boy said.

That was the unspoken theme of the afternoon: Bone Thugs-N-Harmony did not just make hits. They invented a lane.

Fat Joe, who spoke before the unveiling, said he had attended about 10 Walk of Fame ceremonies and had never seen a crowd spill into the street the way fans did for Bone Thugs-N-Harmony.

“I owe a great deal to Bone Thugs-N-Harmony,” Fat Joe said.

The Bronx rapper said the group supported him early in his career, took him on tour, appeared in his videos and stayed close through personal loss, including the death of Big Pun.

“They never acted funny with me,” Fat Joe said. “They took me on tour with them. They came to my videos. They showed up in my songs.”

Fat Joe said the moment also mattered because the five members were together, healthy and able to receive the honor in person.

“I love that the guys are all here,” he said. “They all look great.”

Ice-T followed with a speech that put the group’s legacy in the context of 1990s hip-hop, when biting another artist’s style was one of the fastest ways to lose credibility.

“I get a phone call. They say Bone Thugs getting a star. I said, ‘About time,’” Ice-T said.

He asked the crowd to pause and appreciate that the members were alive, together and receiving their flowers in public.

“Usually, you only see people like this — we only get together during bad times,” Ice-T said. “Let’s just applaud the fact that all Bone Thugs are alive, healthy and here.”

Ice-T said originality was the currency of the group’s era.

“Our era of hip-hop, you had to be original,” he said. “You could not sound like anybody else.”

When Bone Thugs-N-Harmony arrived, he said, there was no mistaking them for anyone else.

“When Bone Thugs hit the scene, they were like nothing we had ever heard,” Ice-T said. “That’s why I got to tip my hat to them.”

The group formed in Cleveland in 1991, originally performing as B.O.N.E. Enterpri$e before being discovered by Eazy-E. He signed them to Ruthless Records in 1993, giving the West Coast label a group that sounded nothing like Los Angeles, New York or Atlanta.

That difference became the point.

Their national breakthrough came with the 1994 EP “Creepin on ah Come Up,” powered by “Thuggish Ruggish Bone” and “Foe tha Love of $.” A year later, “E. 1999 Eternal” made them unavoidable.

Released in 1995, “E. 1999 Eternal” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and produced “1st of tha Month,” “East 1999” and “Tha Crossroads.” The last of those, rewritten as a tribute after Eazy-E’s death, spent eight weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won the Grammy Award for best rap performance by a duo or group in 1997.

“Tha Crossroads” did something rap was still fighting to prove in the mid-1990s: It made mourning sound massive.

Bone Thugs followed with “The Art of War” in 1997, another No. 1 album that included “Look Into My Eyes” and “If I Could Teach the World.” By then, the group’s influence had moved beyond Cleveland and Ruthless Records. Their cadence, hooks and sing-rap approach were already being absorbed across hip-hop and R&B.

Big Boy called them “veterans and relevant at the same damn time.”

During brief acceptance remarks, the members thanked God, their families, Ruthless Records, longtime collaborators and the fans who stayed with them for more than 30 years.

“From the trenches to the stars,” one member said. “We’ve been through it all, through the fire and the rain. We came from a place where opportunities were way too limited. So to be here standing with my brothers is something that I don’t take for granted.”

He said the group’s mission was simple.

“All we wanted to do was share a particular sound to inspire the world,” he said.

Another member made clear that the star belonged beyond the five men whose names were being honored.

“This is everybody’s star,” he said.

That line fit the afternoon. For Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, the Walk of Fame star is not just a trophy for past sales. It is a public marker for a sound that stretched rap’s vocabulary and made Cleveland part of hip-hop’s emotional map.

The group’s records could be spiritual and menacing in the same breath. “1st of tha Month” turned a welfare-check calendar date into a celebration. “Tha Crossroads” became a funeral song and a victory lap at the same time. “Thuggish Ruggish Bone” sounded like a cipher drifting through smoke.

That influence is easier to hear now than it was to explain then. The melodic rap that later became a default language for many artists did not appear out of nowhere. Bone Thugs helped make it commercially viable without sanding off the speed, darkness or strangeness that made them special.

At the end of the ceremony, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce proclaimed Wednesday Bone Thugs-N-Harmony Day in Hollywood before the group unveiled its star.

More than 30 years after five Cleveland rappers chased a record deal to California, Hollywood gave Bone Thugs-N-Harmony a star. Cleveland gave them the hunger. Eazy-E gave them the door. Hip-hop gave them the sky.

The harmony still travels.

Jermaine Dupri Lawsuit Claims Sony Underpaid So So Def Royalties

Producer and So So Def Recordings founder Jermaine Dupri filed an $18 million federal lawsuit against Sony Music Entertainment on Monday. The lawsuit alleges a systemic pattern of underreported royalties tied to foundational Atlanta hip-hop acts including Kris Kross, Xscape, and Da Brat. 

Jermaine Dupri turned So So Def into one of the most important Black music factories of the 1990s and
early 2000s. Now, he says Sony Music Entertainment owes him millions from the catalog that helped make Atlanta a permanent fixture on the Billboard charts.

Dupri, So So Def Recordings, and So So Def Productions sued Sony in federal court in New York on Monday, accusing the company of underpaying royalties tied to some of the biggest records of the era. The lawsuit seeks at least $18 million in damages, plus prejudgment interest and attorneys' fees.

The case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, turns a three-decade label relationship into a fierce fight over accounting, recoupment, and catalog money.

The complaint outlines a systematic pattern of accounting errors, alleging Sony underreported royalties, failed to report others entirely, and altered old statements.

“As it turns out, many of SME’s dealings with So So Def have not been lawful and have harmed So So Def in its business,” the complaint states. “[Sony Music Entertainment] intentionally failed to account to Plaintiffs to avoid paying millions of dollars to the Plaintiffs."

The lawsuit names a roll call familiar to anyone who listened to R&B radio in the 1990s and 2000s, including Xscape, Kris Kross, Da Brat, Jagged Edge, Bow Wow and Bone Crusher.

The sharpest allegations in the lawsuit involve Kris Kross, the teenage Atlanta duo Dupri discovered before their smash hit "Jump" turned backward clothing into a national uniform.

Dupri alleges Sony did not report producer or override royalties tied to the group's first two albums, "Totally Krossed Out" and "Da Bomb," until 2023. The lawsuit claims more than $2.2 million is still owed from those two albums alone.

“SME attempted to conceal all Kris Kross royalties due Plaintiffs for over 20 years in a separate royalty accounting system unknown to Plaintiffs,” the complaint states.

The lawsuit also targets the accounting for Xscape’s 1993 debut album, "Hummin' Comin' at 'Cha." Dupri’s side alleges Sony underreported more than $960,000 in producer royalties from that specific project.

Despite both of Xscape's first two albums being certified platinum, the lawsuit claims Sony still listed a So So Def account as being more than $1.5 million in the red as of June 2020, calling the discrepancy "unfathomable".

Da Brat’s historic 1994 debut, "Funkdafied," is also part of the dispute. The complaint alleges Sony withheld more than $1 million in producer royalties tied to the album, which made Da Brat the first solo female MC to be certified platinum.

The legal filing states the problems came into sharp focus following a 2025 desk audit by Gelfand, Rennert & Feldman, an accounting firm frequently used in entertainment royalty disputes. Dupri and the So So Def companies allege the audit uncovered years of reporting problems, missing payments, and amended statements that only partially corrected old figures.

The lawsuit notes that Dupri’s So So Def recordings and production deals helped generate more than $200 million in gross revenue over their 32-year business relationship. The $18 million sought in the suit includes more than $10 million in interest.

Sony Music Entertainment has not yet publicly responded to the filing.

Sparky D, Pioneering ‘Roxanne Wars’ Battle MC, Dies at 61

Sparky D, born Doreen C. Broadnax, is shown in an undated publicity photo. Broadnax, the Brownsville, Brooklyn, rapper whose 1985 answer record “Sparky’s Turn (Roxanne You’re Through)” made her a key voice in the Roxanne Wars, died July 4 at 61. No cause of death has been announced.

Sparky D, born Doreen C. Broadnax, the Brownsville, Brooklyn, MC whose 1985 answer record “Sparky’s Turn (Roxanne You’re Through)” made her one of the defining voices of the Roxanne Wars, has died. She was 61.

Her death was announced over the holiday weekend by her family. No cause of death has been announced.

She first recorded with the Brooklyn group The Playgirls, then broke out on her own with “Sparky’s Turn,” a direct response to Roxanne Shanté’s “Roxanne’s Revenge.” The record arrived during one of rap’s earliest full-scale lyrical wars, when answer records were not social media events but actual vinyl releases, pressed, shipped and judged by DJs, radio listeners and crowds.

The Roxanne Wars began after UTFO’s “Roxanne, Roxanne,” a 1984 record built around a fictional woman who rejected the group’s advances. Roxanne Shanté, then a teenage MC from Queensbridge, answered with “Roxanne’s Revenge.” The response was sharp, funny and ruthless enough to create its own industry.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @djpremier

Then came the replies to the reply.

Sparky D’s entry stood out because it did not sound like a novelty record or a quick cash-in. She came at Shanté with a hard Brooklyn delivery and the confidence of someone who understood the assignment before there was a phrase for it. “Sparky’s Turn” was not just part of the Roxanne craze. It became one of the records that made the feud feel like a real fight.

The rivalry soon moved beyond wax. Sparky D and Shanté appeared together in staged battles, sometimes leaning into the boxing imagery that surrounded the feud. In 1985, the conflict was captured on “Round One: Roxanne Shanté vs. Sparky Dee,” one of the most memorable documents from rap’s first great answer-record era.

For a later generation raised on diss tracks, beef timelines and endless commentary, the Roxanne Wars can sound almost quaint. They were anything but. They proved that rap audiences would follow conflict across records, boroughs, radio stations and personalities. They also proved that women MCs were not side characters in hip-hop’s competitive tradition.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by MC Sha-Rock (@iammcsharock)

DJ Premier, in an Instagram tribute, called her “one of the 1st Female Battle MC’s” and said her “relentless voice and delivery” made her a force.

“I became an instant fan,” Premier wrote, recalling her battles with Shanté.

MC Sha-Rock, one of hip-hop’s first women on record and a founding member of Funky 4 + 1, wrote that “the HIP HOP WORLD has taken a tremendous loss.”

Grandmaster Flash called Sparky D “one of the dopest female MCs from back in the day.”

That praise carries weight because Sparky D’s career connects two crucial eras: the foundational days when women such as Sha-Rock helped open the door, and the mid-1980s moment when MCs such as Shanté and Sparky D kicked it wider through battle records, street-level radio and live performance.

Sparky D understood that lineage. At a 2021 Bronx event honoring MC Sha-Rock, she said, “Without MC Sha-Rock, my mother, there would be no me.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Grandmaster Flash (@djflash4eva)

After “Sparky’s Turn,” she continued recording through the 1980s. Her catalog included “He’s My DJ” with Kool DJ Red Alert, “Throwdown,” “Sparky’s Back” and the 1988 album “This Is Sparky D’s World” on B-Boy Records. The records placed her in the same gritty independent ecosystem that helped define New York rap before major labels fully understood the music’s commercial power.

Her life after the first wave of fame was not easy. Sparky D later spoke publicly about addiction, abuse and the doors that closed once her early rap run slowed. In a 2007 profile, she described herself as a woman who had been through hardship and come out with faith intact.

“You gotta go through something in order to grow,” she said.

In later years, Broadnax turned toward Christianity, gospel rap and ministry. She moved to Atlanta, founded Treasure Ministries and won a Gospel Choice Award in 2007 for “This Is for the Church.” That part of her story mattered, too. It was not a footnote after hip-hop. It was how she chose to keep using her voice.