What I believe happened was that Bone who gave us kid-friendly songs like Thuggish Ruggish Bone, Me Killa, Mo Murder, Weed Song, Foe the Love Of Money and Shoot Em Up( this was for the soundtrack to a movie about boxing by the way) began to mature and wanted to pull away from the demonic, quiji board, bodybag- filling, thuggin on da corner, shotgun blastin image that they had made for themselves.
The label (old white & jewish men) said "absolutely not, continue with the thug image or your days of being rich & famous will be over.
It cant be a coincidence that Bone's most positive single came out near the end of their peak:
To sum it up: The Powers That Be DID NOT want BONE influencing the black youth in a positive way
Not really. I remember when Tha Crossroads came out and that single blew the fukk up. Bigger than California Love, and Killing Me Softly (those songs being the most requested on the radio). There was a lot of anticipation for their next album and they followed it up with an album that had some weak singles. "Look Into My Eyes" was boring and "If I Could Teach the World" just sounded like a watered down attempt at making another Crossroads-type of song. I was a big fan of them at the time and was like "wtf is this bullshyt" when I heard the first two singles.
Also, how can you claim they were trying to influence black youth in a positive way when they were still making songs about killing cops, murder, and beefing with other rap groups in light of the eastcoast/westcoast beef?
The reason they didn't continue their winning streak:
1. Weak lead off singles for the Art of War
2. Disappointing follow up to E.1999
3. Ruthless Records had lost Eazy-E and was being ran by someone who knew little-to-nothing about the music industry.
4. Then Bizzy, their most recognizable and distinct member was in constant conflict with them which eventually led them to breaking up. Bizzy wasn't even in the music videos for their album.
