b. Erik Schrody, 18 August 1969, Valley Stream, New York, USA. A former graffiti artist and protégé of Ice-T, US rapper Everlast was one of the few white members in the Rhyme Syndicate posse. Everything on his debut album was as might have been expected: hardcore visions of violence, extensive use of expletives, and puerile, anatomical descriptions of women. There was, at least, room for an anti-PMRC rap, and samples drawn from the diverse tangents of Sly And Robbie, Sly Stone and even Bananarama and the Knack. Everlast was introduced to hip-hop while at summer camp, a friend there teaching him both graffiti and elementary street rap. Everlast laid down a couple of tracks with the help of his friend’s DJ partner, Bahal, and Ice-T liked what he heard. He released his first single as far back as 1988. Everlast toured the UK supporting Ice-T, but abandoned his solo career when he joined Irish American hip-hoppers House Of Pain, who enjoyed a US Top 10 smash in June 1992 with the addictive ‘Jump Around’.
Schrody quit the music business in 1996, but returned to recording two years later with Whitey Ford Sings The Blues, an impressive slow-mo fusion of hip-hop beats and folk stylings that climbed into the US Top 10. In an eventful year, Everlast had already suffered a near fatal cardiac arrest and converted to Islam. The following year he contributed one of the stand-out tracks (‘Put Your Lights On’) to Santana’s phenomenally successful Supernatural. His own Eat At Whitey’s built on the successful acoustic blues/hip-hop template of its predecessor, achieving real beauty on tracks such as ‘Black Coffee’ and ‘Black Jesus’. A lesser album followed in 2004 on the Mercury Records label.
