Shatasha then sang the hook to me on the phone, just as she did that day in the studio in 1994, and revealed that the group decided within an hour that they were going to use her on the song. This was before Bone Thugs had even got on the track, and I was like, 'Oh yeah, I like that.' Bizzy was like, 'We want you to say thuggish ruggish bone.'" They pulled up the track, and I was jamming to it. "I went in and they played the track for me. "I called Eric and he was like, 'Yeah, you know I got a group Bone that's coming out, and we're really trying to get you on these tracks,'" Shatasha recalled. Through a friend, she was put into contact with Eazy, who at the time was looking for female vocalists to work with Bone.
Shatasha detailed to me the process of how she first linked with Bone, and what it was like in the studio when she sang the hook on "Thuggish Ruggish Bone." Even before her work with the group, Shatasha appeared on Candyman's 1990 track "Knocking Boots," which helped her build her name as a budding singer in L.A. Shatasha is now removed from the Los Angeles music scene, which is where she recorded with Bone and Eazy, and has since relocated to Shreveport, La., where she has four daughters.
Going into the interview, I really didn't know what to expect, but Shatasha seemed eager to talk, and I had questions that needed answers. Better yet, she agreed to talk to me on the phone. From there, I sent a tweet to Shatasha and she responded. It wasn't until I scrolled through the page for about an hour and found a comment that Shatasha left in 2012 where she linked her Twitter account that I actually caught a break. The page featured a few photos that led me to believe that this was the very same Shatasha Williams who sang the hook on "Thuggish Ruggish Bone." Through this page I tried to contact anyone who she had discussions with, but nobody responded. Like the other page, this one had not been active in a few years, but it did include a number of posts. Hours into my search, and with a bit of luck, I was linked to another Facebook page associated with Shatasha Williams. Bone hasn't really talked about her in interviews, though Krayzie Bone did speak about the recording of the song in a piece they did with XXL for the 20th anniversary of the EP last year. In the age of the Internet and social media, it's almost impossible for anyone to completely disappear, and thus, I knew I would be able to at least get an idea of what happened to her. There were just too many questions and not enough answers about her story. For years, I also wondered what happened to Shatasha.
Williams basically disappeared from the public eye following the platinum-level success of "Thuggish Ruggish Bone," on which she is an officially credited artist. Her name, though mistaken by many as Tasha, pops up on Twitter every week with people wondering what happened to her. Shatasha Williams is one of the biggest mysteries in rap history. For my money, the song is one of the greatest in rap history ( Questlove agrees!), and a large part of that is due to the mesmerizing hook, which was sung by Shatasha Williams. This story isn't about my personal love for Bone Thugs-N-Harmony though, but about the one song that turned me into a Bone Thugs loyalist, "Thuggish Ruggish Bone." Everything about the song, and also the video, which had Eazy-E strolling through Cleveland, built the foundation for my love of hip-hop. Regional bias aside, f rom that point on, Bone Thugs was cemented into my favorites for life. More specifically, the first time I heard the group's song "Thuggish Ruggish Bone," which was the lead single from the project they released in 1994, I was hooked. For me-a Cleveland native -one of my earliest experiences with rap occurred when I was formally introduced to Bone Thugs-N-Harmony via their EP, Creepin on ah Come Up. When you boil it down, hip-hop, and music in general, is about memories and how songs and moments stick with you in a personal way over time.
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