EXCLUSIVE: How UFC Fighter Conor McGregor Helped Reunite Bone Thugs-N-Harmony

It’s been nearly a year-and-a-half since Krayzie Bone was flirting with death. The Cleveland native was hospitalized in September 2023 after an artery burst inside his left lung.

Although he was diagnosed with a rare lung condition called pulmonary sarcoidosis in 2016 and had learned to live with it, this was different. Thankfully, Krayzie was able to bounce back and continue his career as a pioneering member of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony.

Over the past week, Bone Thugs has been sharing behind-the-scenes photo of their recent link-up in Houston, where all five original members—Krayzie, Layzie, Bizzy, Wish and Flesh-n-Bone—are currently working on a new album, their first group effort since 2010’s Uni5: The World’s Enemy. AllHipHop caught up with Krayzie, who had just returned to Los Angeles and was excited about the progress Bone Thugs had made in the studio.

“The vibe was great,” Krayzie tells AllHipHop. “We just picked up where we left off. Everything was smooth and we were working really fast. We knocked out like four or five songs. It was a wonderful thing.”

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A post shared by Bizzy Bone🎙👊🏽 (@mrmccane)

Funny enough, Bone Thugs’ reunion can be partly credited to the least likely person—UFC fighter Conor McGregor, whose recently launched Greenback Records is now Ireland’s first major record label. So far, Greenback has signed Xzibit, Telander and Bone Thugs.

“Connor expressed interest in us last year and wanted to work with us,” Krayzie explains. “Once he put the offer on the table, it looked good. We actually signed the deal last year, but the holidays and rescheduled shows took up the first two months of 2025.”

Anyone remotely paying attention has likely noticed Bizzy Bone is consistently absent from Bone Thugs-n-Harmony shows. The fact he’s onboard for a reunion album is a feat in itself.

“When he saw what was on the table, it was like….I mean, we were going to do this anyway, even without Connor McGregor,” Krayzie says. “The Conor McGregor situation just made it happen faster.”

Two Houston Hip-Hop heavyweights rolled through the studio as Bone Thugs were recording: Scarface of the Geto Boys and Bun B of UGK, who will hopefully pop up on the impending project.

“We’re just getting started, but we let ’em know we wanted a feature,” he adds. “When we put the videos up on social media and people are starting to see us together, the buzz is buzzing right now for sure.”

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A post shared by Layzie Bone (@thereallayziebone)

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A post shared by Layzie Bone (@thereallayziebone)

The buzz began in the early ’90s after Bone Thugs signed with Ruthless Records and released their debut EP, Creepin’ on ah Come Up, in 1994. The project included the hit single “Thuggish Ruggish Bone,” which is still a staple of their catalog and at live shows. But it was the group’s sophomore album, E. 1999 Eternal, that catapulted them to another level.

Released in 1995 just months after their mentor and founder of Ruthless Records Eazy-E died, E. 1999 Eternal produced the massive single “Da Crossroads,” a beautifully harmonized song about death and grief. The album sold more than 300,000 copies in its opening week, topped the Billboard 200 for two consecutive weeks and was nominated for the inaugural Best Rap Album Grammy Award.

Needless to say, Krayzie Bone is beyond grateful that Bone Thugs has achieved the kind of longevity most artists only dream of.

“I always call it a blessing,” he says. “It’s not like we’ve been on the scene for all these years. We took time off and played the back for some years. To still be able to lock in these kind of situations just by the ring of our name, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, it feels good to know that we laid down that kind of foundation to where people are always interested to hear what we have.”

While no release date is set for the album, Bone Thugs fans should have a new single and accompanying video soon, although they don’t plan to include that one on the album; it’s just to whet fans’ appetites.

“Fans can expect you know a lot of growth,” he says of the upcoming album. “A lot of fans are going to be talking about ‘we want the old school Bone Thugs-n-Harmony,’ but they have to realize that we’re in different mindsets now. When we came out here, we were starving, we were grimy and our mentality was totally different.

“It was like that for a few of our albums, but you can see that gradually we started to put more positive messages in our albums and songs. We’re gonna mix it up and give them a little bit of both, but we don’t wanna put ourselves out there still talking about the same thing. We’re older now.” —