Cx1DJs We Do Things Different Podcast "Untold Stories of Onyx" hosted by DJButterrock

Onyx is an American hardcore hip hop group from New York City, formed in 1988 by Fredro Starr, Suavé (also known as Sonny Seeza) and the late Big DS. Sticky Fingaz joined the group in 1991.

They are best known for their 1993 platinum hit single "Slam",[2] which The Source magazine described as a song that introduced the art of slam dancing into hip-hop.[3] The group has released eight studio albums, three of which have charted in the Billboard 200 albums chart Top 25. Their debut album, Bacdafucup, has been certified platinum,[4] won Best Rap Album at the Soul Train Music Awards and was selected as one of The Source magazine's 100 Best Rap Albums.[5]

They have been quoted as describing their style as loud screaming, aggression, fighting with each other, stage diving, throwing water, rapping with grimy voices, and bald head fashion.[6][7][8][9][10][11]

History
Onyx was formed in 1988 by schoolmates Fredro Starr, Sonny Seeza, and Big DS. They decided to name the band after the onyx stone.[12] The band began recording their first demos in the basement of B-Wiz with drum machine beats from an SP-12.[13] In 1989, Onyx signed Jeffrey Harris as their manager, who helped them secure a contract with the label Profile Records. On April 25, 1990, the group released their first single, Ah, And We Do It Like This, to low sales.[14][15]

On July 13, 1991, while in a traffic jam at The Jones Beach GreekFest Festival, the band members met music producer Jam Master Jay,[16][17] who agreed to give them two months to submit a demo to his record company. When the deadline came, Seeza and Big DS couldn't make it to the studio to record the demo,[18] so Jeffrey Harris, the manager of Onyx, asked Fredro to come to the studio with his cousin, Kirk Jones, who at the time was doing a solo career under the name Trop. Fredro and Jones recorded two records for the demo, "Stik 'N' Muve" and "Exercise".[19]

The demo was accepted by Jam Master Jay, who signed the band to his record label, Jam Master Jay Records. Jones subsequently joined the band with the stage name Sticky Fingaz. In 1991 the band lost all of its records when its music producer, B-Wiz, was killed while selling cocaine in Baltimore.[15] Later that year, Onyx hired Chyskillz as its new music producer.[13]

In 1993, Onyx released their debut album, entitled Bacdafucup. The album proved to be successful, receiving a platinum certification from the RIAA and peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard 200, the group's highest debut at that point. In 1998, the album was selected as one of The Source's 100 Best Albums. Three of the album's songs reached the Billboard charts; "Throw Ya Gunz", "Slam", and "Shiftee". Their breakout single, "Slam", was aired on MTV and BET, causing the song to reach No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. "Slam" was certified Platinum by the RIAA on August 10, 1993. In 1994, Big DS left the group to start a solo career, producing music under his own record label called Illyotic Music.

In 1995 Onyx released its second album, All We Got Iz Us,[20] and founded its own record label, Armee Records, distributed through MCA Records. Through its record label, the band produced music by Gang Green, All City, Panama P.I., and Choclatt.[21] In April 1995 Marvel Music, a short-lived imprint of Marvel Comics, released a comic book based on the band called "Onyx: Fight!". Written by Karl Bollers and drawn by Larry Lee, the comic depicted a post-apocalyptic New York City where Onyx forms an underground rebellion.[22]

In 1998 the band released their third album Shut 'Em Down, which featured appearances from other bands, including X-1, DMX, 50 Cent, All City, Mr. Cheeks, Wu-Tang Clan, N.O.R.E., and Big Pun. Produced by Keith Horne, Self, and others, the album peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard 200, selling 500,000 units.[23] Three of the album's songs reached the Billboard charts; The Worst, Shut 'Em Down, and React. Shut 'Em Down was Onyx's last album on the Def Jam Recordings label.[24]

In 2001, Onyx released their fourth album, Bacdafucup Part II, through Koch Records.[25] Produced by Davinci, DR Period, and others, the album included twelve new tracks,[26] including "Feel Me", which was recorded on the night of September 11, 2001, and was dedicated to the events that had happened that day.[27] In 2003 Onyx released their fifth album, Triggernometry, consisting of ten new tracks, with eleven stories from the lives the group's members in between the tracks. On May 22, 2003, former Onyx member Big DS died in a hospital in Queens, New York at the age of 31 after receiving chemotherapy for lymphatic cancer.[28][29][30]

Cx1DJs We Do Things Different Podcast "Untold Stories of Gang Starr" hosted by DJButterrock Gang Starr were an American hip hop duo, consisting of Houston-born record producer DJ Premier and Boston-based rapper Guru.[1]

Gang Starr was at its height from 1985 to 2003, and is considered a widely influential MC-and-producer duo.[2][3] They are recognized for being one of the pioneers of jazz rap active during the golden age of hip hop.[3][4] Some of their top hits include "Mass Appeal", "Take It Personal", "Moment of Truth", "Full Clip" and "Above The Clouds".[5]

Career
Original and second group lineups
The original Gang Starr group was founded in Morehouse College by three friends from Boston, Massachusetts: Guru (then known as MC Keithy E.) who had planned to be a rapper/singer, Big Shug as the main MC and DJ Suave D (Shug's younger brother Dana) as their DJ. After Shug was imprisoned, Suave D quit the group, leaving Guru to enlist the services of MC Damo D-Ski and DJ 1, 2 B-Down (also known as Mike Dee)[6] with various producers, such as Donald D, J.V. Johnson or the 45 King helping out. Their earliest recordings were in 1986 where they made various demos.[7] In 1987 and 1988, Gang Starr released three 12-inch vinyl singles on Wild Pitch Records.

Breakup and partnering with DJ Premier

Gang Starr performing in Hamburg in 1999
In 1989, the group split for the second time and the only member willing to continue under the name was Guru. He got in touch with Houston, Texas native DJ Premier (then known as Waxmaster C) who submitted a tape of beats to Wild Pitch records, which Guru liked. He invited DJ Premier to join Gang Starr, relocate with him to Brooklyn and in that same year they released their first single "Words I Manifest" along with the album No More Mr. Nice Guy (1989).[1] In 1990, the group was signed to the Chrysalis record label by then A&R director Duff Marlowe, a former DJ and Los Angeles Times rap music critic. The label offered Guru and Premier unlimited artistic license and major-label distribution worldwide, a platform the group used to become one of the most influential hip hop acts of that decade. During their career Gang Starr helped pioneer the New York City hardcore hip hop sound. The Gang Starr catalog, especially Step in the Arena (1991), Daily Operation (1992), Hard to Earn (1994) and Moment of Truth (1998) are well respected among underground rap fans and critics. Their track "Jazz Thing" was featured on the soundtrack to Spike Lee's film Mo' Better Blues.[1] Gang Starr provided a track, "Battle", for the soundtrack of the 2002 movie 8 Mile.

After several albums and tours, in late 2002 DJ Premier left Europe to go back to the United States. Once again Guru was faced with continuing alone and became involved in a European tour in 2003–04 with an alternate DJ. In 2006, Guru indicated in several interviews that Gang Starr had reached its end.[8]

Cx1DJs We Do Things Different Podcast "Untold Stories of Bo$$" hosted by DJButterrock

Lichelle Marie Laws (September 12, 1969 – March 11, 2024),[2] better known by her stage name Boss (stylized as Bo$$), was an American rapper from Detroit. Her debut album, Born Gangstaz, reached number three on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart in 1993. Laws became best known as a part of the burgeoning West Coast gangsta rap scene in the early ’90s.[3]

Life and career
Laws was born in Detroit to Joe Laws, an autoworker, and Lillie, who took her master's degree in education and was a teacher at junior high and middle schools, formerly a teacher of business education at Lewis College of Business, Detroit. Her parents were both church deacons. She had two elder sisters.[4][5] Laws relocated to Los Angeles after graduating high school, accompanied by her DJ Irene 'Dee' Moore. She was spotted by DJ Quik who stuck her on a track with AMG[citation needed]. Russell Simmons liked the track and promptly signed her to Def Jam West.[4] Her debut album Born Gangstaz was released in 1993,[6] and the singles, "Deeper" and "Recipe for a Hoe", hit number one on the Billboard Hot Rap Tracks chart.[7] On the track "Progress Of Elimination", Bo$$'s line "Yes sir master, no sir master- I'll work faster" is an homage to the rapper who influenced her style, Detroit's Derek "Chef Word" Washington. It was a frequent Chef Word bar.

In 1994, Laws was interviewed by a reporter from The Wall Street Journal, who revealed that she grew up in a middle-class neighborhood (on the West Side, Detroit), studied ballet and piano, and attended Catholic private school (where she was a cheerleader), before majoring in business for two years at Oakland University.[4][5][8][9] Laws had never attempted to disguise the truth of her upbringing; the intro of her 1993 album Born Gangstaz, "Intro: A Call from Mom", has her mother Lillie describe her as "a young lady who was brought up through Catholic school for 12 years; and dance schools, tap dance, jazz, piano lessons and all of that; plus, you went to college for three years..."[10] "The album is, in fact, bracketed with a mockery of her rearing; phone messages from mama and papa particularizing a privileged suburban upbringing (Catholic-school, piano-playing, tap-dancing)" belying the record's "unyielding vulgarity and embroidered aggression" with a "brilliant... self-mocking disclaimer". Def Jef, who produced the album and suggested the inclusion of Laws's parents, observed, "I can't believe none of the reviews saw the irony of that. No one did!" Having left Detroit for south-side Los Angeles in 1990, Laws and Moore encountered its "squalid side... derelict hotels, feudal gangs, dealing and hustling". Prior to securing a record deal, they lived in poor circumstances, selling drugs, sleeping on benches, and living in low-rent hotels. Her parents were unaware of the lifestyle she was leading. In the wake of her first album, Laws and Moore stopped working together, Laws noting, "We couldn't work together anymore, but we were still cool"; Moore's Def Jam deal never came to anything.[4][5]

In the mid-1990s, Laws relocated to Texas to record songs with Ricardo Royal, a.k.a. "Coco Budda", a rapper whose work she had admired. Laws settled in Houston, entered a relationship with Royal, and had a son, Lamar. Although living a more relaxed life, Laws recorded demos for a second album, funded by Def Jam, but the label rejected them, and she was dropped from the label. Laws took this development in stride, noting, "I was used to that kind of shit... I thought I was good enough to get another deal. But I just chilled in Texas. Then I got sick." Still performing shows despite waning popularity in light of her lack of new releases, Laws moved to Dallas with Royal, where she took a job as co-host of a nightly hip-hop radio show on KKDA-FM, where she stayed for five years, recalling in 2004 "that was a bomb job". By 1999, she was suffering kidney failure; she and Royal amicably split up, and she went to live with her parents, undergoing dialysis for three and a half years, experiencing "every complication that you have with... bad kidneys", and given a poor prognosis. At times of comparatively better health, Laws recorded with Def Jef, who praised her dedication, lack of self-pity, and resolve in the face of her health problems. In 2001, she