Posts with the: robert de niro tag.

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Darrin O’Brien Is As Sober And Soft As A Snowflake

Source: Marcus Maleus, www.westerngazette.ca

SnowConsidering the inexplicable popularity of Snow’s breakthrough single ‘Informer’ in the early 90s, many thought it would be the beginning and end of commercial success for the rap/reggae musician from Scarborough, Ontario.

Snow, also known as Darrin O’Brien, spent his early days listening to reggae music and attempting to make out the often mumbled lyrics. Growing up in rough and tumble Scarborough gave him realistic inspiration for hard rap/reggae music. Despite this, he insists he never came out with any particularly negative music.

‘Informer,’ the catchy reggae tune riddled with, at times, un-decipherable lyrics, proved to be an astounding success in both Canada and the United States. The song made its way into the Guinness Book of World Records twice. Once, as the highest selling reggae single in United States history and again as the highest charting reggae single in United Kingdom history.

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No More Melt-Downs For Snow

Source: Andrew Flynn, www.montrealgazette.com

Snow will never fall again, that much he promises.

From alcohol abuse to jail to stardom to obscurity and back again has been a mostly upward journey, the only direction to go, the singer has decided.

Born Darrin O’Brien and raised in a heavily Jamaican section of suburban North York, Snow, 31, is clearly enjoying his reincarnation from international reggae-cum-rap star – thanks to his huge hit Informer in 1992 – to pop singer. Long gone are the days when he would go on a two-day bender and wake up in a lockup – or a hospital.

“Never again. I’m never going to let my daughter see me behind bars. Never,” he says. “I learned the hard way, but at least I learned.”

Just being around Snow is like experiencing a moderate to heavy caffeine buzz: his intensity is infectious, as if he’s got a nuclear reactor in his socks that needs to be rigorously stifled just so he can sit still.

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Evil Spirits

Source: Access All Areas and Primetime

Evil Spirits photoshootDarrin O’Brien has never worked a day in his life — kind of. The Toronto-bred singer whose rapid-fire Jamaican patois helped lodge the song ‘Informer’ on top of the Billboard Singles chart for seven weeks back in 1993 admits to having never held employment outside the music business. ‘The first job I ever had was music,’ he says, ‘and it’s a hard job.

Wrapped in cigarette smoke, O’Brien, better known to the world as Snow, is sitting in a cafe kitty-corner to MuchMusic’s Toronto studios. It’s Thanksgiving, a holiday Monday, and the streets are suitably quiet. It’s also the day before Snow’s comeback record, Mind On The Moon, arrives in stores so he’s working hard to sell me — and the rest of Canada — on his continued relevance.

So far, the odds seem to be in his favour. ‘Everybody Wants To Be Like You’, Mind On The Moon’s first single, sits at Number 2 on Soundscan’s Singles chart as of this writing, and while critics have been less than enthusiastic about Snow’s return (Matt Galloway of Toronto weekly NOW refers to Moon as a ‘scrubbed-down teen-pop nightmare’), MuchMusic and mainstream radio have embraced their prodigal son.

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Snow Settles In

Source: Chris Lamb, www.teenmusic.com

In 1993 Jurassic Park was a monster movie and the Chicago Bulls NBA champions. Grunge rock was in fine form and airbags were the newest car safety devices since front-wheel drive. 1993 was also enthralled with the relatively new sound of rap and that year’s biggest rap song was undoubtedly Informer, a worldwide number one hit by Snow.

Snow recorded Informer as a troubled youth and his life instantly transformed from troublemaker into pop star. Fame and money followed in the wake of the single, taking Snow around the world to promote and perform his debut album ’12 Inches of Snow.’

Born Darrin O’Brien, Snow grew up in the Allenbury projects in North York, a subsidized neighborhood of the Greater Toronto Area. A school dropout in grade eight, Snow immersed himself in Toronto’s street culture, acquiring a criminal record and an interest in music. Reggae and hip-hop were particular favorites and Snow developed a unique rapping sound that became known in the East Coast music scene. While on vacation in New York Snow began recording ’12 Inches of Snow’ with producer MC Shan.

The album was released and the first single, Informer, found heavy rotation on radio and TV. ‘Informer’ sat at #1 on the Billboard Singles Chart for seven weeks straight in 1993 and is entered into the Guinness Book of World Records twice – as the Biggest Selling Reggae Single in U.S. History and Highest Charting Reggae Single in history.

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Snow Alert

Source: Mike Ross, jam.canoe.ca

Snow has never understood the ‘white rapper’ label he’s worn all these years. ‘I’ve never been a rapper,’ he says. ‘Eminem’s a rapper. I’m on the borderline. I’m not a reggae artist or a pop artist or a hip-hop artist. It’s just everything mixed.’

If there’s still any doubt, it should be banished with the release of Mind on the Moon. Snow is now a singer all the way. While there are traces of his reggae-rapping style, called ‘sing-J,’ he has a surprisingly high and airy singing voice, well suited to the album’s light pop sheen, marked mainly by (real) acoustic guitars. The artist known as Darrin O’Brien – an Irishman who got into reggae growing up in the ‘projects’ of North York, Ont. – didn’t plan to be a pop singer, but fans have embraced his new sound.

Everybody Wants To Be Like You is Snow’s first big hit since 1993’s Informer. It might as well be a different artist. Snow’s music isn’t the only thing that’s changed. Yes, this will be another one of those “bad-boy-gone-good” stories.

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