All gangsters go to Heaven in Bone Thugs-n-Harmony’s hip-hop funerary hymn, “Tha Crossroads.”
It was released February 1, 1996 to an America in total chaos. Within only 5 days of that release, 2 separate armed gunmen had taken and/or killed hostages in Washington and Hawaii. Over 150 lives had just been lost in an extreme January nor’easter, and the Oklahoma City bombings were less than a year past. Death felt like just another blip on the evening news.
So there in the midst of our collective wailing came this incredible new sound. Bone Thugs had already dropped one album featuring R&B singers on memorable hooks, but now these self-proclaimed “thugs” were doing the singing themselves on “Tha Crossroads.” Taking full advantage of their (then) four-piece ensemble, songs like “Tha Crossroads” and hood epic “1st of Tha Month” found the group harmonizing, singing rounds, and curiously rapping to the melody instead of the customary beat.
Of course equally revolutionary was the song’s substance. As was their trademark, the song opened with soulful women’s voices, but in “Tha Crossroads,” those voices sang a spiritual. From there, each verse spotlights the unique flows of Bizzy Bone, Wish Bone, Layzie Bone, and Krayzie Bone as they all deliver a different aspect of mourning the recently deceased, from calling the names of the dead to speaking with God on behalf of their souls. Among those the Bone Thugs grieve is N.W.A. rapper Easy E who first signed them to his record label. Here, at the height of the East Coast-West Coast rap beef, 4 Black men were pouring out their pain over the loss of a friend and mentor to AIDS. It was an act that humanized the whole genre, and with Tupac’s death later that same year, began transforming rappers’ images from murdering, drug-dealing criminals into streetwise sages.
Even the video felt like a sea change. When the Angel of Death stole through the scenes, plucking souls from the living and the dead to lead them all up a literal stairway to Heaven, it might well have been the first time I saw a “Biblical” character portrayed on TV as a Black person. And though they’re laughable now, these graphics were unreal for a 1995 music video, particularly the inclusion of a “living” Easy E, though he’d died well before filming.
As a tender and emotional expression of bereavement from people the world expected were least capable of it, “Tha Crossroads” of course became one of not only hip-hop’s, but music’s greatest moments that still bring us together. Pour some out for Uncle Charles, y’all.
𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗘𝗦 𝗧𝗢 𝗟𝗢𝗩𝗘:
“While you laughin’
we passin’ passin’ away”