I was in jail and I had a dream I was flying over all these houses, me and my mother. She was picking out houses. When I got out of jail, the first thing I bought was a car for me and a house for her. - SNOW
A decade ago, Darrin OBrien entered prison a troubled young thug and left an international recording star. It was the kind of story a Hollywood screenwriter could hardly have topped, a nigh impossible yet classic tale of uncanny timing and fortune. But it was all very real. And it was exactly the kind of cyclone experience that could have left a youthful talent like OBrien, better known to the world as SNOW, chewed up in its wake. It didnt.
SNOW was continually in trouble with the law in his teens. There was the phony attempted murder rap for which he was acquitted and later chronicled in Informer. It was on a trip to New York City while on bail for an assault charge back home that SNOW was discovered by MC Shan. Shan was so impressed by the white boy from Canadas freestyle skills he rushed him into a studio to make what would be the debut 12 INCHES OF SNOW. I didnt even think it was going to come out, he says. I thought it was just a joke.
After shooting a video for Informer, he returned to Toronto for sentencing on the assault charge. He plead guilty and got a year. He didnt hear the mixed version of his album. He first saw the Informer video in prison.
I got out after eight months. I got into a limousine and I was gone. Paris, Rome, Germany.
Informer held the #1 spot on the Billboard Singles Chart for seven weeks in 1993, entering up a Guinness Book Of World Records as the biggest selling reggae single and highest charting reggae single in history. Informer went on to sell 8 million units worldwide and 3.2 million units in the U.S.
A guy who remembers when he had no dreams, SNOW laughs his self-effacing laugh as he looks back on the twist of fate that made him a household name. He has long since ditched his criminal past, but held on to his roots. He still has the same girlfriend (16 years and counting), and is devoted to their seven-year-old daughter, Justuss.
And he remains proud of what he considers the product of multi-cultural Toronto: Jamaican dancehall and American R&B filtered through an Irish kid who jokes that his only excuse for not going country is that hes yet to find a pair of cowboy boots he doesnt hate.
Yes, all over the world
Reggae music... any and all of it
Go out and buy "2 HANDS CLAPPING" and watch for the new album... July 2005
