Keith Murray's Beautiful Thing

12/21/1998 4:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Billy Johnson Jr

(12/21/98, 1 a.m. PST) - Jive Records is preparing to release Keith Murray's It's A Beautiful Thing on Jan. 12, 1999. Convicted of assaulting a 16-year-old concert attendant in 1995, Keith began serving a three- to five-year sentence at Hartford Correctional Center Oct. 26, one day before the album's original release date.

It's A Beautiful Thing's first single, "Incredible," features LL Cool J. The album also includes collaborations with Canibus, Too $hort and Murray's Def Squad partners Erick Sermon and Redman. Additionally, Murray guest-raps on one of R. Kelly's current single "Home Alone."

The rapper's original three-year sentence was increased to possibly five years when he failed to turn himself in Sept. 24 as scheduled during the 1996 appeal of his conviction.

Murray made his national rap debut on 1993's "Hostile" from Erick Sermon's No Pressure, his first solo album after EPMD's breakup. The following year, Keith released his debut album, the gold-certified The Most Beautifullest Thing In This World, the title track of which won him respect in the hip-hop community. In 1996 he released his second album, Enigma.

Features on EPMD and Canibus are available now on myLAUNCH.

-- Billy Johnson Jr., Los Angeles