Yahya snow biography informer

Born Darrin Kenneth O'Brien, 1970, in Toronto, Canada; son of a cab driver and Donna, a homemaker; two brothers and one sister; daughter Justuss, born April of 1996. Addresses: Record company-Elektra/Asylum, 75 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY, 10019.

In the predominantly urban-based, African-American world of rap, Caucasian newcomers have been characteristically met with suspicions of cultural appropriation, as was the case with comic-book flash in the pan Vanilla Ice, who fabricated his past to give him the street-wise credibility many "gangster" rappers wear on their sleeve.

Irish- Canadian Snow had no need for such phony publicity, as his childhood was steeped in the harsh pressures of city life, as well as to the sounds of Jamaican inspired reggae. When his debut single "Informer" rocketed to the top of the sales charts in the Untied States and Canada, the singer was serving prison time for a knifing to which he pleaded innocent.

Nevertheless, Snow was dogged by comparisons t