Onyx

About Onyx

Formed in 1989, Onyx is a hardcore rap group featuring Fredro Starr, Sonee Seeza, and Big DS. After the latter member left, Starr's cousin, Sticky Fingaz, was added and finally the business of recording albums was underway. The group has overcome criticisms of selling out in an odd way: mostly by retaining their thug image through vandalism and run-ins with police, and organizations such as the NAACP who would not let them perform at a football halftime show. Onyx is one of the dwindling numbers of hardcore rap groups that actually originated before and during the very early 1990's. The age of the group means that they have brought a more old-school style to the table and this has kept an audience for the group that has shunned modern rap-pop releases. nOnyx has released five records during its career: Bacdafucup (1993), All We Got Iz Us, (1995), Shut 'Em Down (1998), Bacdafucup Part II (2002), and Triggernometry (2003). The first album went double platinum and charted at no. 17 on the Billboard 200. The second record reached gold status, but the next few slid down in ratings and sales. With the band on hiatus, people started to wonder if they would ever come together to record again. Something of a feud between Fredro Starr and popular rapper 50 Cent arose during this time and if nothing else helped to cement the image of Onyx members as hardcore and very gangsta. nA new album is rumored to be in the making and slotted for release in 2008. Given the amount of time between the new and the last release in 2003, it remains to be seen whether the break will make for poor record sales or if it will drum up a renewed interest in Onyx by fans who had thought them dead and gone.