Krayzie Bone returns to Cleveland to spread the Bone Thugs-N-Harmony love, rename a street, celebrate hip hop and have some barbecue

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Anthony Henderson, better known to the world as Krayzie Bone, is home in Cleveland, but he’s embodying the moniker of one his bandmates in Bone Thugs-N-Harmony by staying very “bizzy” while he’s in town. He’s got several talks, a street-naming ceremony and a Bone Thugs show Saturday, opening for LL Cool J at Rocket Mortage Fieldhouse.

But also, the longtime L.A. transplant just likes coming home, man.

“Oh yeah. Yeah. Yes, Every time I come back, lately I’ve been staying longer and longer,” he said sitting in a meeting room at Midtown Tech Hive, politely delaying his lunch of pepper steak for an interview.

“Everybody wants some time. Got to find a way to get in here, man, so many things to do. I got my favorite food spots I like to go to. I got to, you know what I’m saying? Open Pit (Barbecue) and Mr. Hero — all day long,” Krayzie said.

Related reading: Down home Southern cuisine the hallmark at Open Pitt Barbeque Carryout: Cleveland’s Best BBQ contest

More seriously, Krayzie Bone has to check in with the Spread The Love Foundation, the non-profit he founded in 2019 that “advocates for urban arts cultural equity by providing music industry education and workforce development for disadvantaged populations to improve Cleveland communities.”

“We’re trying to build a school here, an academy, so that we can educate the aspiring artists who are coming up from this city — not just the city, but the entire state. … Basically we are trying to give them the weapon of education when dealing with these big corporate giants,” Krayzie said of Spread The Love’s mission.

“It’s a very unbalanced system when it comes to the artists and the labels. So we want to break that cycle and give the artist some leverage and teach them because most artists going into the business don’t know the business. All they have is their talent. That’s all they have. That’s all they know. But if they had education with that, then that would take them much further and they would make better decisions going in and take some of that leverage away from these labels,” he said.

Krayzie Bone has been in Cleveland for a while this time. On Friday, Aug. 4, he threw out the first pitch at the Guardians vs. White Sox Game game at Progressive Field. Any emcee throwing a first pitch has to confront the specter of rapper/actor 50 Cent’s legendary wild pitch at a 2014 Mets/Pirates game.

“Yeah, that’s what everybody was saying,” Krayzie said. “Hey, I threw a strike, you know what I’m saying? So, I got good reviews on it. So, yeah, it was good. I was nervous as hell though, but you know, I pulled it off for real, for real,” he said.

In addition to the opening pitch, Krayzie has been doing a copious number of local television interviews while he’s been in town. And he’ll be doing much more talking from 5:30 to 7 p.m Thursday, Aug. 10, at the “50 Years of Hip Hop: The Intersection of Culture and Community Well-Being: A Candid Conversation with Krayzie Bone of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony” forum organized by the City Club of Cleveland and happening at Morning Star Baptist Church (10250 Shaker Blvd., Cleveland). The event will be live-streamed by The City Club.

Then, from noon to 2 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 11, at the corner of 99th St. and St. Clair, in the heart of their home, Krayzie will be joined by his bandmates Bizzy, Wish, Layzie and Flesh-n-Bone for a renaming ceremony that will transform E. 99th Street, the thoroughfare the group made famous on their 1995, chart-topping quadruple platinum album “E. 1999 Eternal,” into Bone Thugs-N-Harmony Way.

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“We were just happy, man. We was proud,” Krayzie said of first learning that the street would be renamed in their honor.

“We felt blessed that the community still felt the love, has always been there, and it’s a wonderful thing to be alive to witness it, you know? Definitely.”

After the street renaming, Krayzie keeps it moving with another panel talk from 5:30 – 8:30 pm on Friday, August 11, this time at the Cleveland Public Library. It is being presented as part of “Floetic Fusions: Celebrating HipHop Legends & Giving Flowers to the Culture,” and will also feature New York Times reporter and author Jonathan Abrams, and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Vice President of Education and Visitor Engagement Jason Hanley as panelists.

Finally, on Saturday night Krayzie joins the rest of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony as one of the artists on Rock & Roll Hall of Famer LL Cool J’s The F.O.R.C.E. Live show at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, along with some of their peers and heroes including The Roots, Method Man and Redman, MC Lyte and Jadakiss.

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“I love those shows because it’ll be a big party. Like, people are backstage, behind the stage, in the dressing room hallway. Everybody’s just talking, kicking it, drinking, ‘Hey cuz you remember that time?’ he said of multi-act bills.

“And I get to sit up and talk to the OGs and tell them, man, you know how you inspired me, man? And I get to tell them my stories and listen to their stories,” Krayzie said.

Unfortunately, Krayzie said Bone Thugs won’t be able to perform at the Glenville Festival on Saturday, Aug. 12, as previously announced due to prior commitments. But he has fond memories of growing up attending the community festival and said performing has long been a dream of the entire group.

“That’s annual in the community. You know, the Glenville Festival. We’re really disappointed we can’t take the stage because that’s always been a dream of ours. We’d just sit back like, `man, we gonna rap on that stage one day, like really, like for real,” he said.

“So maybe next, year we’ll come back and do it for sure. It’s our 30-year anniversary next year. So we definitely got to come back and do it next year, for sure, for sure.”

The F.O.R.C.E. Live tour, starring LL Cool J, the Roots, DJ Jazzy Jeff, DJ Z-Trip, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and others, plays at 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 12 at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, 1 Center St., Cleveland. 216-420-2000 or rocketmortgagefieldhouse.com.