Bone Thugs-n-Harmony

Take a few minutes and root around your childhood bedroom closet. Find the box you dumped all your old CDs in when you moved out. Pull out Bone Thugs-n-Harmony’s E. 1999 Eternal for a listen. Once the nostalgia fades, you’ll find that most of the songs hold up. Turns out, there’s something surprisingly timeless about the Cleveland gangsta rappers’ smoky beats, fast rhymes and front-stoop harmonizing. It’s not all about Eternal, either; fine-tooth-comb their later material and you’ll find some hidden gems (“Ecstasy,” anyone?). Twenty years on, they’re still grinding out tours. There’s been some brotherly disharmony — Krayzie Bone quit the group back in April — but they can can still rap faster than you can think.