City Journal Article |
Four-Part Harmony
Boston's biggest hip-hop stars squashed their beef. Now they want their fans to do the same.
By Chris Faraone
- SOUNDING OFF: 4Peace in action. From left, Edo. G., Mo' Gee, Twice Thou, and DQuest. Photo by Dave Green.
Violent teens won’t sway to “We Are the World.” But if they’ll listen to anyone, it just might be 4Peace, a Boston hip-hop all-star group that formed to counter the city’s rising death toll.
Their first act was to make peace among themselves. After four rappers were killed in Dorchester in 2005, Antonio Ennis (a.k.a. Twice Thou), who designed and then disowned the infamous “Stop Snitchin’” shirts, buried an old grudge with gold-selling artist Edward Anderson (Edo.G). Wyatt Jackson (Mo’ Gee) and Deric Quest (DQuest) joined up, and the group began writing antiviolence songs, meeting with city teens, and earning praise from government leaders.
With its forthcoming debut album, Peace Pays—for which the first singles will be out this month—4Peace is turning on the hard sell. “We grew up the same way these kids are,” Anderson says. “We can reach them through the music, and after that we can feed them positive ideas and change the culture."
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