Everlast

Everlast is familiar. It’s not just that he recorded one of the biggest breakout hip-hop hits in history — 1992’s “Jump Around” with his old group House of Pain. Or that he made the empathy anthem of the 20th century — 1998’s “What It’s Like,” from his triple-Platinum LP Whitey Ford Sings the Blues. It’s not the GRAMMYs he was nominated for, or the one he won with Santana. No, the reason we feel we know the artist born Erik Francis Schrody is twofold: It’s in the way he redefined rap’s relationship with blues and rock, and it’s in the humanity he’s always brought to that sound — a mix that rings across the airwaves today. Through his rap-honed pen and earthy baritone, he renders our universal experiences in a way that gets to the heart of it all.