It has been nearly seven years since Bone Thugs-N-Harmony released Uni5: The World’s Enemy. That album marked a complete reunion of the full Ohio collective, including both Bizzy Bone and Flesh-N-Bone, whose status within the group had been compromised by contracts, incarceration, and alleged turmoil. The effort (following a stint with Swizz Beatz’ Full Surface imprint) was backed by Asylum/Reprise Records. It scored a Top 15 debut as only the second LP (since 2000’s platinum BTNHResurrection to include all five MCs).

In the years since, Bone Thugs have returned to factions and side projects. 2013’s The Art Of War: World War III was released without Krayzie and Wish Bone, who had departed the group for solo interests. In the time since, Krayzie partnered up with Tha Outlawz’ Young Noble for Thug Brothers, Bizzy and Layzie made Bone Brothers IV, while Flesh and Wish focused on solo catalogs (Wish’s debut Recognize is expected later this year).

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Today (March 24) it has been announced that the Bone Thugs-n-Harmony group lineage is in the hands of Bizzy and Krayzie Bone. Called simply “Bone Thugs,” summer 2017’s New Waves is the first isolated project between the two 25-year collaborators. Moreover, “Coming Home,” the Stephen Marley-assisted 2016 reference track is in fact the first listen at what the Bone Brothers have to offer.

“This album is a breath of fresh air coming from Bone,” says Krayzie Bone in a press statement. “We wanted to give this project a different look. That’s where the album title comes from: New Waves. We will always be a group…we will always be Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, but this is different than from the norm. This is Bone Thugs.”

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Signing with eOne, the project reunites Bone with executive Alan Grunblatt. Before joining Koch (nka eOne), he led Relativity, which distributed and administered Ruthless Records since the late ’90s. That label was responsible for success such as E. 1999 Eternal, Bizzy’s Heaven’z Movie, and Krayzie’s Thug Mentality 1999, all of which achieved platinum status. Bizzy states, “[Alan Grunblatt is] the same dude we’ve had all our success with since E. 1999 Eternal. Everything we’ve ever done has been successful with Alan. So we’re comfortable with knowing that our project is in good hands.”

New Waves will include a full-on B.T.N.H. track, “Waves,” produced by Scott Storch. Besides Marley, other guests include UGK’s Bun B and Korn’s Jonathan Davis, among others.

As a duo, Bizzy and Krayzie have high praise of one another. “Bizzy is one of the coldest lyricists of all time,” Krayzie touts. “He’s special. And Bizzy has mastered his style…his craft. Once any artist does that there’s no limit.” Biz’ adds, “I always knew from the first day I met him that Krayzie had the touch of Dr. Dre and EPMD in him. He’s everything you would epitomize a legend to be. He was the visionary behind Bone Thugs-n-Harmony technically. He was the first to understand how to get instrumentals done with just a boom box. It’s ‘hood, but Krayzie is a musical genius.”

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New Waves first single “Coming Home”:

This song first appeared, in reference track form, in association with the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 2016 championship run.