Onyx
Hardcore gangsta rappers from Queens, New York, USA, Onyx are led by Sticky Fingaz (b. Kirk Jones, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA), with the rest of the crew initially comprising Fredro Starr (b. Fredro Scruggs, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA), Big D.S. and DJ Suav‚ Sonny Caesar. Their intense, gun-fixated image quickly became a popular receptacle for ill-conceived teenage fantasies in both the USA and UK. They originally recorded a solitary single for Profile Records, 1990's "Ah, And We Do It Like This", before switching to Columbia Records. Boasting titles such as "Blac Vagina Finda", a visual image of bald heads and bad attitudes, their debut album was co-produced by Jam Master Jay (Run-DMC). It sold in huge quantities, arguably because the music itself, on tracks such as "Throw Ya Gunz" and the US number 3 hit single "Slam', was undeniably exciting as well as forceful. Living up to the crew's gangsta image, Fingaz found himself in trouble for allegedly assaulting a passenger on a United Airlines flight to New York from Chicago's O'Hare airport. Meanwhile, Fredro Starr appeared in Forest Whitaker's movie, Strapped in 1993, and (with Sticky) in Spike Lee's Clockers. By the advent of 1995"s All We Got Iz Us, recorded by the remaining trio of Starr (aka Never), Sticky Fingaz and Caesar (aka Sonee Seeza) for Def Jam Records, their ultra-violent image had been usurped by the arrival of Staten Island's Wu-Tang Clan, but Onyx still offered ample evidence of their ability to hammer home their message in tracks such as "2 Wrongs" ("Two wrongs don't make a right, But it sure do make us even").
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Albums
- (1998) Shut 'Em Down
- (1995) All We Got Iz Us
- (1994) Bacdafucup
Top Tracks
- Slam
- Throw Ya Gunz
- Shut 'Em Down
- Bacdafucup
- Shifftee
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