Yes, Spalaney’s is back! The Elements of Nature quartet that included members Rif, Snap, Tony Baines & Coolout Chris, is back in action with new music but the truth is, they never left…

Hailing from “The Woods”, the collective name for the western suburbs of Bellwood & Maywood, Illinois, Spalaney’s formed as a trio came together as students performing in Proviso West High School talent shows. At that time the 3 members were Chris, Casey, and Cordell. Since their names all began with the letter C and Cordell had an uncle nicknamed Spalaney, they decided to call themselves “Spalaney C Bunch”. A chance encounter with Maywood producer Marc 2 Eaze Smith gave a new direction to their music. He provided the production for early Spalaney’s work. At the time 2 Eaze was also working with another MC named Tony Baines. On one occasion Tony challenged Spalaney’s to a battle that got quite heated and went on for hours. Tony would soon join the group. They dropped the C Bunch, and the group Spalaney’s was born.

Spalaney’s started to attend events and open mics across Chicago and very quickly became a buzz on the Chicago Hip-Hop scene. This would be followed by the formation and rise of Elements Of Nature also known as EONS, (pronounced ee-yawns). EONS were a crew of artists that included Rubberoom, Thawfor, Kinetic Order, Verb, Dirty M.F, Children of Reality, Indigenous Theory and of course Spalaney’s. They made a huge impact on the Chicago Hip-Hop scene and represented a migration of artists coming to Chicago from surrounding suburbs to take advantage of opportunities to perform and network.

Within a few years Spalaney’s was on tour with DJ Quik, on stage at Prince’s Glam Slam in Minneapolis, showcasing for major labels, ASCAP, and executives, and performing at colleges and clubs around the country. In 1995 they featured alongside with other Chicago notables like Steady Serv, Rubberrom, Juice, The Figure, and Ang13 on the Talent Fest compilation, which many say was one of the first, and best collections of Chi emcees ever released. Spalaney’s would continue performing for the next several years as a 4-man group, then a 3-man group, and for a while the group just featured 2 emcees.

For the past 10 years Spalaney’s has been pretty low key. Tony Baines has garnered notoriety for music production and is one of the city’s most sought after producers. Coolout Chris has still been producing music, performing and in 2010 became a US Cultural Envoy spending time in West Africa on a cultural Exchange.

So much has changed and so much remains the same for the new Spalaney’s sound. It’s the same group who brought you Spaghetti & Biscuits, Universal Language, Tameka, No Dough No Show and Switchblade, but now they’ve grown up and deliver that grown man music. Still raw and gritty, with clever rhymes, and head knocking beats…


Published on chicagomusic.org December 2012