Staying power is an accurate determinant of longevity and success in the music industry and this is especially true in a genre in which the fans are as much involved in scrutinizing albums as the critics are. In the Hip Hop mainstream, where quickies are preferred over music that will buck with your mind for a guaranteed climax, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony seem to steadily compete with everyone from ABC rappers to rappers for sell.

In the midst of it all, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony has dealt with notable label, legal and internal issues, especially pertaining to its eccentric member Bizzy Bone. Despite their group struggles and inevitable punches thrown by the music industry, Bone has more than stayed above the water, recently winning American Music Awards' "Rap/Hip-Hip Band/Duo/Group" category, as their most recent album, Strength & Loyalty received RIAA's gold certification (pushing over 500,000 units). As the Hip Hop trio (now consisting of Krayzie, Layzie, and Wish Bone) continues their promotional tour, and promoting their 2007 independent release T.H.U.G.S. through Sony/Red, HipHopDX catches up with masters of melodic flows to discuss individual growth, latest acting endeavors and their staying power among new and old fans alike.

HipHopDX: You’re on tour right now. How’s that going?
Wish Bone: It’s going real good; we’re always on the road, we’re used to it. We gotta keep our music out there for our fans and stay in their faces. But we love to tour; it’s just part of seeing how our fans appreciate what we put our heart and soul into.

DX: What’s the craziest thing that happened so far?
WB: I would say probably people jumping on stage and getting tackled by security. [Laughs]

DX: What happened with Canada though? You guys were refused entrance?
Krayzie Bone: Yeah it’s real crazy, ‘cause we had just went over there like a few months before they denied us. We was just over there, did a show in…I forgot the cities we was in but we did three shows out there and we tried to go back and they tried to hit us up with our music is too violent and just coming with all kind of stuff out of left field; basically, they was just hating on us.

DX: 50 Cent was allowed in –
KB: Exactly. They’re a bunch of haters.

DX: Does Bone Thugs-N-Harmony have much of the fans it had a decade ago for example or do you see yourselves catering to new crowds?
WB: I mean we got our die-hard fans that’s been there with us from the beginning, and at some of our shows you see little kids, little kids like 10, 11 years old singing “Thuggish Ruggish Bone.” I basically say we evolved to the new fan bases too.

DX: What attracts the new generation to your music?
WB: Good music. There’s just something about good music that you can just feel from it, from the heart, from the soul. You can’t deny it, no matter who makes it. And that’s just something that we’ve been blessed and fortunate enough to do – make music that people can feel.

DX: How do you define “good music”?
WB: Real music. Not just music that makes you wanna get up and shake your watootsie but music that you can sit down and think [to], and can probably help you through some personal situations.

DX: Your movie, I Tried. Are you satisfied with the feedback?
KB: The feedback from the movie was real good – even better than we expected. We didn’t really know what the outcome was gonna be until people started telling us “Man it was a real good movie; y’all really did good.” For it to be our first movie to ever be in…it’s been a really good outcome so far --
Layzie Bone: -- And then it went platinum in DVD sales.

DX: Were you guys nervous about acting?
KB: In the beginning. We was all nervous when we got to the set, but once we got past the first scene, we was like, “Man, this is easy, we can do this.” We just really got into it after the first scene we shot and just tried to move…

DX: How did you go about memorizing the script?
KB: That was kind of easy - if you just practice. We were at home practicing, in the trailers practicing. It ain’t like we had to learn a whole verse; when you do movies everything is chopped up. You just gotta learn a couple lines and just re-mash them; so that was kind of easy.

DX: What’s happening with the documentary you guys are planning to shoot, the one about your life; that still in the plans?
KB: Oh yeah, definitely. We’re exactly trying to have that as a part of our next group album that comes out, which we plan to start recording in probably like the next few months; so that’s definitely gonna be coming out with the album.

DX: Any plans for the album so far?
KB: We really haven’t even been into the studio ‘cause we’ve been on the road…we’ve been on the road for a minute now. We didn’t really get into the studio to even come up with concepts yet. We’ve been talking to Swizz and talking to Interscope, but we haven’t really sat down to talk about the concepts.

DX: Strength & Loyalty. It demonstrates your maturity and understanding. What did it take to get to that point?
KB: Basically, just living life. Going through different experiences that we go through and living day-to-day. As we grow older, our music grows with us. Everybody said it was a more mature album - that’s because we have grown and we’ve gotten more mature. So of course our music is gonna change, our train of thought is gonna change. It changes along with us.

DX: What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far?
KB: You have to be on your business; it’s not just about the music. Even though people would get in and think that that’s what it’s only about – the music and having a good time and doing shows and just traveling around the world. You really have to know what’s going on with your business in order for you to be happy - or be ready to try other things or retire. You really have to be on your business.

DX: The album had many features which were diverse in themselves (including Akon, Mariah and The Game). Did you have a specific listener in mind before creating it?
WB: Not really; we basically just went in and spun collaborations and we reached out to Akon; our people reached out, and he said he’d do it. We just looked at it like, “Man, it’d be a great collaboration because he’s different and we’re definitely different.” All the other songs came about like all our songs usually do; we just go in there, pick the tracks, sit in a circle and collab…and we come with our music.
KB: And the reason why we have so many collaborations on the album is because we’ve never done it before. That’s not something people are used to seeing Bone do. So that was like a big part of us being different because it’s something we’ve never done before; we hadn’t been out in a while; we was like “We need to do something totally different,” and that seemed to be the best thing at the time - us collabing with a lot of different artists. And it worked out real good too.

DX: How influential was Swizz to the project?
WB: The album kicked off in Swizz Beatz’ studio as we first got to him when he reached out to us. We went down there and knocked out a whole bunch of songs in two weeks; he kick-started the whole thing. He was very influential.

DX: The group had publicized problems in the past. Looking back, how has that affected your music and do you feel that there was pressure with this album to remedy everything for Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and return to the music, and return to the fans?
KB: It definitely was because all the negative things and all the negative publicity can tend to take you away from the music and the creative side of things. So we definitely tried to put that all aside and get what we learned and put it into the music and the hard times we went through – and we went from there.

DX: Age-old question: where does the group stand with Bizzy Bone?
WB: As far as the Bizzy situation, it ain’t really no really hard feelings. It’s just like you said, we’re grown men now and we can’t conduct our business as if we don’t know what we’re doing; and basically, that wasn’t the same [route] he was going at the time. [One monkey doesn't stop the show], and we gotta keep it moving.

DX: What can we expect from Bone Thugs-N-Harmony this year?
WB: Real heart-felt music. We’re always gonna do that, keep it coming like that. We got another movie coming out, Ghetto Cowboys. We got our artists coming out on our labels, and basically, [we’re] keeping our head above the water.

DX: Wanna touch on Ghetto Cowboys real quick?
KB: Basically we’re just getting started; we just did the first draft of the paperwork. So it’s still in the early beginning stages. And we’re working on trying to get the casting done and all that. You’ll definitely be hearing more about it as we get further along in the project.

DX: Concept?
KB: It’s a black western…it’s a different time period, 1800s. There’s a little history in it, about slavery, about the army – basically about black cowboys; outlaws.