DJing In 1982, Tyrone Taylor began in Brooklyn as a member of his older brother's hip-hop group, Cold Crash Scenes, performing with
Killah Priest. Soon he began practicing
DJing. In the future, his experience will be useful to him in recording the Onyx's second album
All We Got Iz Us. Sonsee moved from Brooklyn to
John Adams High School in 1985 and first met
Fredro Starr and
Big DS at the battle in Ajax Park (now called "Dr. Charles R. Drew Park") in Queens.
Onyx In 1988, after graduating from school at the age of 17,
Fredro Starr created the rap group
Onyx along with his schoolmates Big DS and Suavé. Big DS came up with the name for the group, he named it after the black stone Onyx. They began to make the first demos in the basement of B-Wiz with drum machine beats from an
SP-12."...B-Wiz was my producer when I was fifteen and sixteen, even. When all the other kids was getting turntables, he had an SP-12 [sampler]. He was one of the first niggas in the hood with a beat machine." In 1989, Onyx signed Jeffrey Harris as their manager, who helped them secure a contract with the label
Profile Records. In 1990, at York Studio in Brooklyn, they recorded their first single, "Ah, And We Do It Like This", which was released to low sales on April 25, 1990, on Profile. "... That very first record was produced by a producer named B-Wiz. B-Wiz was the first producer of that record. He produced “Ah, And We Do It Like This,” and a lot of the original shit in like ’89, ’87, and ’88 for Onyx."
Jam Master Jay Suave,
Fredro Starr and
Big DS met
Jam Master Jay in a traffic jam at The Jones Beach GreekFest Festival on July 13, 1991. Jay give them about two months to get a demo, but Suave and Big DS couldn't make it to the studio as they were stranded in Connecticut. Onyx manager, Jeff Harris, later asked Fredro to come to the studio with his cousin, Kirk Jones (
Sticky Fingaz) who, at the time, had a solo career under the name Trop. Jones, who was still in high school, would frequently cut class to work at a barber shop where he was reportedly making a thousand dollars a week. Fredro and
Sticky Fingaz made two records, "Stik 'N' Muve" and "Exercise". "...When we went to the studio we made two records. One was called 'Stick and Move' and the other was called 'Exercise'. And they both were crazy! When Jay heard the songs he was like, 'Yo, I love the group'."
Sticky Fingaz would join Onyx as a full-time member after Jam Master Jay stated, “If Sticky ain't in the group, it ain't no group!”. Jay signed the group to his label,
JMJ Records, for a
single deal, followed by an
EP deal. An
album deal was later signed, due, in part, to the fact that the group managed to create 10 songs on a 6-song budget.
Def Jam years In 1993, Onyx released their debut album entitled
Bacdafucup. It proved to be a commercial success and eventually went
multi-platinum, largely due to the well known single "
Slam". Then Onyx released on
JMJ Records another two albums:
All We Got Iz Us and
Shut 'Em Down.
Contribution Tyrone Taylor came up with a merged spelling of the words "Bacdafucup", which the group members chose to name their debut album. The phrase "United States Ghetto" or shorty "U.S.G." was made up by him. Suave is the designer of one of the very first logos of the Onyx group, used by group in 1992. Sonny Seeza also created the names "Sticky Fingaz" and "Mickey Billy" for the characters of Kirk Jones and Fredro Starr for the song "Stik 'N' Muve".
Solo career Sonny Seeza stopped touring with Onyx in 2009 to begin a solo career, but he still performs with other members of the group on big shows. He no longer participates in recording new songs with Onyx. Seeza's debut album
Tytanium was released through Iceman Music Group on May 19, 2009. He said the album "was more a double mix-tape with old and new songs. It wasn't what it set out to be. Due to company discrepancies and them dropping the ball, I pulled out". In 2011 Sonny Seeza was booked to travel to Switzerland through Loyal Booking Inc., a booking agent to do several live show performances in Switzerland. Sonny then was introduced to Mattieu Siegenthaler in Switzerland By Soni K, a loyal booking show promoter. Mattieu was interested in doing an album project with Sonny Seeza through his startup label Imprint, Empire Music. The first project he released on the new label Empire Music was a compilation CD
The Billboard Blackmarket Mixtape. In 2012, Seeza founded his label Tytaynium Onyx. He released his second solo album
Bridges on February 26, 2016. ==Discography==