Video: Eazy-E's Hologram Reunites With Bone Thugs-n-Harmony

Last night a hologram of the late Eazy-E took the stage at Rock the Bells in San Bernardino, performing his biggest hits with his protégés Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. N.W.A’s DJ Yella introduced the hologram that went on to perform "Straight Outta Compton," "Boyz-N-The Hood" and his Bone Thugs-n-Harmony collaboration "Foe Tha Love of $."

So far we haven't seen the same sort of criticisms of the hologram as when a hologram of Tupac performed at Coachella last year. Eazy-E's family was on board and helped craft a hologram that authentically portrayed the Compton rapper. His son Lil Eazy told Hip Hop DX that he was pleased by the way the hologram turned out: “It was a beautiful performance, a beautiful scene of work that we put together. I'm finally glad that my father [was honored] on stage and stood in the forefront."

Tonight Ol' Dirty Bastard hologram is scheduled to perform with the Wu-Tang Clan tonight, Pitchfork notes.

Esquire has an interesting story about how Bone Thugs-n-Harmony and Eazy-E's family worked with the hologram creators. Lil Eazy-E and another son Baby Eazy-E provided inspiration for the body and vocals respectively, while Eazy's daughter Erin provided the facial expressions. Bone Thugs-n-Harmony worked with engineers to make sure that they captured their former mentor's spirit on stage—Eazy was a small guy with a large presence who liked to bounce around on stage while he was performing.

Flesh-N-Bone told Esquire, "Of course the vocals have to be on point. And the image too. If they make him five-ten—when he wasn't that—then it wouldn't do him any justice. It has to be as true-to-life as possible. There were parts of [Eazy's] repertoire that made him so special, like that he was this little dude with this giant voice, and that he had this swagger to him."

Bone Thugs-n-Harmony had to work on their choreography with the hologram beforehand, but they also had to mentally prepare themselves to work with a hologram. Krayzie Bone said he was preparing himself for the puzzled looks from the audience beforehand, so that it wouldn't look like he was baffled by the hologram himself.

Here's a great shot of the performance: