Ford, Everlast and Erik Schrody Five solo albums in the space of 18 years hardly count as a prolific career, but numbers only tell part of Erik Schrody’s story. During those 18 years the man now known as Everlast has travelled a considerable distance from his 1990 solo debut Forever Everlasting. His early days as a member of Ice-T’s extended hip-hop family The Rhyme Syndicate led to the small distraction of fronting House Of Pain in the early-tomid- 90s; then in 1998 he made his first appearance as countryhip- hop alter ego Whitey Ford with Whitey Ford Sings The Blues. Add to this Everlast’s conversion to Islam and it’s clear he’s been on a personal journey of no little magnitude.
Love, War & The Ghost Of Whitey Ford is perfect shorthand for Everlast’s latest. Friend and Stay cover the “love” aspect; (anti-) war is serviced with Kill The Emperor and Letters Home From The Gardens Of Stone, while Ford’s ghost haunts the country-hip-hop cover of Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues. While it’s hard to imagine Everlast ever duplicating the huge crossover success of the first Whitey Ford album, it will be interesting to see where his current incarnation leaves one of hiphop’s unlikeliest survivors.
