Snow

Snow was born Darrin O'Brien on the 30th October 1969 in Toronto, Canada.

He grew up in the Allenbury Gardens projects of North York, a subsidized neighbourhood of the Greater Toronto area.

Snow dropped out of school in grade 8 and started hanging around on the streets, where everybody was drinking and fighting alot of the time.

"My world was kind of small back then, that was kind of all that I knew." he says.

It was also round about this time that Snow's fanaticism that he had for rock bands like Kiss and Black Sabbath waned, and he started listening to scratchy dub tapes and reggae artists such as Tenor Saw and Nitty Gritty.

"I used to get tapes that were dubbed over like 50 times before they came to me. I'd listen and i'd hear a word and rewind it and that's all i'd do," he remembers.

Soon he had mastered the Jamaican patois and the miles-per-minute wordmatology of toasting the mic.

He also mastered being a inebriated menace to society and was given two charges for attemped murder after a incident outside of a North York pub. No stranger to trouble, he was locked up in the Metro East Detention Centre where he served time before being bailed by his mother.

It didn't end there though. In a seperate incident, Snow was charged with assault causing bodily harm for which he pleaded guilty and ended up also serving time in Maplehurst Correctional Centre.

He was later aquitted of all murder charges after a friend confessed to the stabbing.

"I should be saying that I regret going to jail but I can't," he says. "I wrote Informer and got the confidence singing in jail in front of murderers. Eighteen years old and i'm on a range with pure murderers. I'm not on no petty range downstairs, or the third floor, or the fourth floor. I'm on the fifth floor with big timers rocking the jailhouse!"

While on bail, ( between incarcerations ), Snow took a trip to New York City where word got back to MC Shan that this young white suburbanite from Canada could sing reggae, but Shan wasn't too convinced ... until he met Snow.

"This white kid came walking towards me with his little round glasses on, like he always has." says Shan. "He opens his mouth and starts singing Informer and Lady with the Red Dress, and my jaw just fell down by my sneakers! I was like, yo, you've gotta come to my house, we need to start working right away!"

Snow finished recording the album, got a deal with East/West/Warner Bros., made a video to the first single Informer and then returned to Canada to serve at the Maplehurst Correctional Centre.

It was here where Snow saw the video to Informer played on TV for the first time.

After eight months of lockdown, he was released, and so was his debut album, 12 Inches of Snow.

Informer went straight to number one on the Billboard Singles Chart in 1993, and stayed there for a impressive seven weeks. It is also entered into the Guiness Book of World Records, twice, as the biggest selling reggae single in U.S. history, and the highest charting reggae single in history.

And it doesn't end there, Girl, I've been hurt ( also from 12 Inches of Snow ) peaked at number 20 on the Billboard Chart, and the album went triple-platinum in both Canada and the United States. Sexy Girl, from Snow's 1995 album titled Murder Love, charted at number one in fifteen different countries, and Anything for You became such a massive hit in Jamaica, where the record was made, that it is now considered anthemic.

He's even tried his hand at acting. His first role was playing the head of a crack house in Tight: The Motion Picture, a Canadian independent production shot in Vancouver, and more recently playing a prison guard in Robert DeNiro's directorial feature, Prison Song. Which also stars Q-Tip, Mary J. Blige, Harold Perrineau, Elvis Costello and Fat Joe.

He's also worked with some of the biggest producers out there, including Tony and Dave Kelly ( Beenie Man, Sean Paul ) and Michael Tucker ( NSync, Backstreet Boys ).

With an impressive seven albums under his belt, including the 1997 Greatest Hits of Snow album, he remains an internationally recognized recording star and is often asked for his autograph; a gesture which makes the shy singer a little embarrassed. "I like that I touch people with my music," he says. "but why would they want my autograph? I should ask for their autograph as much as they ask for mine because they're just as big a part in the success, i'm making it but they're buying it."