twenty years after the group dropped E. 1999 Eternal, the original five members are consciously pulling the Bone Thugs-n-Harmony plug with what will be their final album, E. 1999 Legends.
This year, employing a similar business model to the one hip-hop guru RZA cooked up for Wu-Tang, BTNH will press only one copy of E. 1999 Legends and sell it to the highest bidder, with an opening bid of $1,000,000. Unlike RZA’s plan, however, BTNH will hand off the master copy of their final album with the intention of its buyer obtaining distribution rights as well. “Things’ve changed since 1995,” Flesh said, laying out the group’s plans, “and there’s no reason to do things the old way just because, you feel? It’ll be an experiment, but we also want to make sure all of our fans get to hear our final cut. We don’t want it to just die in one person’s hands, or just sit on some rich dude’s shelf.”
Hip-hop is rooted in tradition, but also thrives on innovation, and according to Flesh, “innovation has always come from the use of technology and ways of doing business, as well as music.”
