Songoftheday 7/14/21 - The name is Krayzie big bad ass Bone, wanted up north for all the gold that I stole...

 

 

"Ghetto Cowboy" - Mo Thugs Family featuring Bone Thugs-N-Harmony

from the album Chapter II: Family Reunion (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #15 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 12

 

Today's song of the day comes from the hip-hop supergroup Mo Thugs Family, put together by Cleveland rappers Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, whose third full-length studio album The Art Of War had scored a pair of top-40 pop hits with the Batman & Robin soundtrack contribution "Look Into My Eyes" as well as "If I Could Teach The World", which made that level in the fall of 1997.  Also, Krayzie Bone and Wish Bone from the group appeared on Mariah Carey's double-sided single song "Breakdown" in the spring of the following year. The group started the Mo Thugs collective in 1995 to spotlight new artists they were mentoring and bringing to their Mo Thugs boutique label on Relativity Records. The first album under the moniker, Family Scriptures, was released in November of 1996. A track from the album, "Thug Devotion", which featured Layzie and Krayzie Bone, rose to #27 on Billboard magazine's R&B Airplay chart, but the album was way more successful, spending a week at #2 on the Billboard 200 sales list and moving over a million copies. 

In 1998, a second Mo Thugs album, Family Reunion was released. A hype track promoted to radio, "All Good", featuring Layzie Bone and Felicia Lindsey (Layzie Bone's wife), rose to #28 on Billboard's R&B Airplay chart. That lite Miami-bass-style song was co-written and co-produced by Ish Ledesma, whose dance act Company B was on the charts a decade before. The true first retail single from the set went in a completely different direction. "Ghetto Cowboy", written by BTNH members Anthony "Krayzie Bone" Henderson, Steven "Layzie Bone" Howse, Felicia Lindsey, and Kamilha "Thug Queen" Greer", drew on a country-western theme, interpolating Kenny Rogers' card-playing hit "The Gambler" to lead to regaling over literary escapades of bank robbing and avoiding the law and the (insert the slur for Native Americans here). Decades before "Old Town Road", the group was riding around on horses and frequenting saloons and everything. They even shot the video on a California ranch, where Krayzie, Layzie, Thug Queen (who rules this track), and a white rapper with the unfortunate name of "Powder" trade verses while Felicia sings the chorus..

"Ghetto Cowboy" became the biggest hit for the Mo Thugs act, climbing into the top 20 on the pop chart in January of 1999. The song spent two months (eight weeks) at #1 on Billboard's Rap Singles chart, as well as making it to #14 on their R&B list. The Chapter II: Family Reunion album, released in May of 1998, peaked at #25 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #8 on the R&B Albums list, going on to sell over a half million copies.

Despite the success of "Ghetto Cowboy", no other singles were released from the record. In 2000, a third Mo Thugs album was released, Mo Thugs III: The Mothership. With only Layzie Bone from the BTNH group involved in this one, it stalled under the top-40 on the Billboard 200 at #45. A fourth and so far most recent set under the moniker, The Movement, did bring back Krayzie for a few tracks, but missed the Billboard 200 altogether, topping out at #25 on the R&B Albums sales list. 

(6/10)

Up tomorrow: This emo Canadian has some gratitude.