Storm (Donna ”Storm” Harkness)

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Storm was the only female Outlaw, her real name is Donna “Storm” Harkness, she met Tupac during the shooting of a film. After he found out how well she could rap, he asked her to join his group, the Outlawz.

Storm has a zero tolerance policy on bullshit or fakeness and explains why she decided to leave the music industry after Tupac died: “I stopped because, after Pac died, the music stopped for me.  It’s like I went deaf!  I was literally soul-broken.  I started to see things that I didn’t like and weren’t part of my character.  I started to experience the things that Pac had basically blocked me from and put himself in front of so I didn’t have to deal with it and I could just concentrate on music.  Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t naive.  I’ve been through a lot of shit, but it was just nice to have someone there that I know without a doubt that had my back and that I could just do music.   But, when he was no longer that shield, I saw the faces of disloyalty, greed, deceit, lies, so called homies/family showing their true evil ways.  I found out, the hard way, that you have no friends in this business, only opportunist!  I felt, right after Pac died, that if I kept dealing with these kind of people, I would most likely have snapped, and ended up in somebody’s prison!  Because I have very little, if any, patience for bullshit or fakeness.  I didn’t trust anybody after Pac because he was too genuine, loyal, and respectful to me for me to accept anything less from anybody else.  I started to carry a pistol everywhere I went. I became so reckless and angry after Pac’s death that I hated everybody, sometimes including myself!  I felt God had made a huge mistake!”

She wants to display her skills in rhyming and wants to let the world know that even though she was Tupac’s protegee he never wrote her lyrics.  “Pac was excited that he didn’t have to take the time to hold my hand and write my lyrics for me.  But, me being the female rapper makes everyone just assume that he was writing my shit.  That’s 100% false!”  And to people that say she was not an original member of the Outlawz, “I really don’t give a fuck how people want to rewrite history.  Pac made me an Outlaw and unless Tupac Amaru Shakur says otherwise, can’t nobody take that away from me…NOBODY!”

Her first introduction to Tupac led to their future collaboration even before Tupac had created the Outlaw Immortalz.  “I was actually introduced to Pac inside an on set trailer by the home girl, Sunshine.  She was in a 90’s girl group called Y?N-Vee out of Compton, California.  She was a friend of Pac’s.  Pac and me started talking for about an hour before Sunshine came back to the trailer and nonchalantly asked Pac if he knew I was a rapper.  Pac was surprised so he immediately asked me to rap!  He loved it and he asked me to be the first female in his crew.  He hadn’t named the group yet, but later announced that we would be called the Outlaw Immortalz.  I was supposed to be one of his solo artists from the group Outlawz.”

On February 13, 1996, Tupac’s double LP, All Eyez On Me, was released. Storm guest appeared on three songs, “Tradin’ War Stories,” “Thug Passion” and “Run Tha Streetz.”

The death of her mentor turned her life into a chaos, but she still remained strong as she was determined to carry on Tupac’s torch. She appeared on the soundtracks for Tupac’s films, Gridlock’d and Gang Related. She also guest appeared alongside the rest of the Outlawz on albums such as C-BO’s Til’ My Casket Drops, Heltah Skeltah’s Magnum Force and Rondo’s Success Before Death.

Storm was never really much of an active member of the Outlawz and as time went by she decided to leave the group. Her last appearance with the Outlawz was on their 1999 debut LP, Still I Rise. Storm is featured on a lot of Tupac’s unreleased and yet to be released material.

Storm guest appeares on the original versions of “Let ‘Em Have It” and “U Don’t Have 2 Worry” from Tupac’s posthumous release Until The End Of Time as well as on “Never B Peace” and “Whatcha Gonna Do?” from Better Dayz. Unfortunately, she was edited out of the remixed and released versions.

When speaking to a web site she said she will eventually make a come back when the time is right. You can get an appetizer from her new material on the soundtrack for Thug Angel: Life Of An Outlaw, which features the Tupac dedication “Pain” by Storm.

And now it’s time for her solo.  The first song is her way to tell her own story in her own unique way. The track Neva B was born. How did this come to pass? “The lyrics Neva B woke me up from my sleep at 12:01 am in the morning and I went back to sleep an hour later, with the lyrics, including the chorus (hook) and the melody, finished.  I started thinking how nobody can touch Pac or the songs that Pac had written, so I started to name the titles, one by one, and made his titles tell MY story.  That’s how I came up with Neva B. I WAS Brenda’s baby, but I was rescued and given life back.  That’s why I’m “Nobody’s Daughter.”  I literally wasn’t!  That was going to be the name of my 1st album, with Pac’s approval, of course.” (she smiles)

Storm also guest appeared on “Hard Labor” on C-BO’s LP, Til’ My Casket Drops, “M.F.C. Lawz” on Heltah Skeltah’s LP, Magnum Force, and “Ain’t Dead In Vain” on Rondo’s LP, Success Before Death. She never really was an active member of the group, she guest appeared on one song on the Outlawz’s debut LP, Still I Rise. She’s no longer in contact with the Outlawz and after giving birth to her last child she is dedicated her time to her family.

Storm have a Tupac Tattoo on her hand.

“I still miss Pac and there is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about him.  He is my family and I will always love him and even though he’s gone, I stay loyal to him and will never disrespect what he believed in and fought for just so I can make a quick buck or just because it’s the flavor of the month.  It goes deeper than that.  F*ck the fame!  I guess he taught me well…” (she laughs)

Storm – Neva B feat. TJ (Dedicated To Tupac Shakur)

**EXCLUSIVE – Rare Interview with Storm Outlaw

STORM from THUG ANGEL:

Introduction:

They call me Storm from the day I was born. Female Outlaw; Operating Under Thug Laws As Warriors.

“Working with Pac in the studio was crazy. It was just like, just unpredictable. Everyday it was just something serious we learnt for that day or it was something crazy that Pac did just made us laugh, ya know?

We just like have fun in the studio, but also it was like a classroom, ya know what I’m saying. Like it was, was like, you can compare it to one of the hardest classes that you have ever taken in your life, ya know, but it wasn’t. You didn’t go to that classroom and go Oh here we go again, I’m going to this class – you wanted to be there. You got there early; ya know what I’m saying, cause ya wanted to be there. You wanted to know what the next lesson was for the day.

Ya know what – Pac was very demanding in the studio. When he went into the studio, he went into the studio to work.

Ya know we had fun here and there when, ya know when other things were being done that didn’t apply to us: but when it was our turn to do what we were suppose to do – he expected us to step up to the plate and do what we had to do. Ya know he didn’t like no 2 or 3 takes in the booth. He wanted us to – You wrote that you go in there and you spit that. and you get out. Ya know what I’m saying? If you wrote that and you went in there and stumbled over it, I mean why did you write that? You’re not saying it right, your not feeling it obviously cause you keep messin up. So you got to go; you got ta get out – until the next song – and that’s how it was.

It wasn’t that easy to keep up with him, as far as that cause he was just un-stoppable. Like 4 songs – that was a normal day.

Well actually Makaveli was um a three-day theory ya know. He had finished it in 3 days, but there was just so much music around him and so many people, ya know. Every time he’s walk into the studio he would hear a different beat, ya know what I’m saying, that he wanted to write to, that he was like – Oh shit, this shit is tight. He just kept writing and writing cause he had so much to say. So he had to literally say one day that I’m closing the door. I’m not listening to no more music. Don’t bring me no more music – PLEASE; ya know, cause I just have to turn this album in. And that’s how basically it became a 7 Day Theory.

I didn’t think nobody would hate Pac enough to take his life like that. I really do feel that he felt it especially towards the end. Ya know, the way he was driving us. Beating into our heads the fact that we have to stand up more as individual artists. Who’s going ya – who’s going do this when I’m – if I’m not here?

As far as the people that, ya know; have all these theories ya know, all the hope for Pac to be alive – I can’t be mad at them. Because it’s like they’re trying to hold on. I’m holding on right now to his memories, because I know he’s no longer of this earth.

I was there in the hospital with him for the whole time, ya know. I had a chance; thanks to Afeni, to go in and talk to him for the last time. And to tell him that I love him and to say good-bye.

Ya know, he was our General, and after he passed I was lost. And I’m not ashamed to say it; I was lost. Ya know I felt like – like my whole world was just gone.

I felt like the one person that believed in this dream that I had all my life was gone and it was hard for a long time.

It breaks here for a track called ‘Pain’. It is by Storm and you can really feel her ‘pain’ in this joint. If you don’t have this cd – ‘Thug Angel’, I recommend you get it.

I had great hope, I never doubted or came to the conclusion that – that he was not gonna be there with me any more. That never entered my mind.

Everyday that I went up there, ya know – it was I’m gonna see him wake up, we gonna write all these songs together and we are gonna continue on with the mission.

I never in a million years expected to go back to the hospital and find out that he was not there.

Well the tattoo that I have of Pac, I got right after Pac passed. It’s a cross with um; his face in the middle, and it has the words ‘Thug Angel’.

The words thug angel just came to me, it fit. I felt that it fit him perfectly/ Ya know, because to me he is no longer here, but I feel he will always be there for me.

He always told me that whenever I needed him, he was gonna be there for me.

I feel that he’s always gonna be there for me spiritually. Which means he’s always gonna be my THUG ANGEL.