II UNORTHODOX

A story of survival, brotherhood & hip-hop

More than three decades after their first major-label appearance, II Unorthodox return with a story that reaches far beyond a comeback.

"Real artistry doesn't expire."

The origin: Brooklyn, 1995

Every legendary partnership starts with a single record that refuses to be forgotten. For Cid Nino and Nytty Byggs - the two voices who would become II Unorthodox - that record was "Just A Little Flava."

Built around a flip of Isaac Hayes' "The Look of Love" and produced by Nikke Nikole out of the legendary D&D Studios in New York, the track landed on The D&D Project - a 1995 Arista Records compilation that placed II Unorthodox alongside some of the most respected names to ever touch a microphone, including DJ Premier, KRS-One, Smif-N-Wessun, Jeru The Damaja and Mad Lion. Recorded and mixed at D&D Studios and mastered at The Hit Factory in New York, "Just A Little Flava" was credited to writers Cid Nino and Nytty Byggs alongside producer Nicole Miller - a permanent paper trail proving that two kids from the outer boroughs had officially arrived on a major label.

At the time, the group was guided by manager Nat Robinson - founder of First Priority Music, the Brooklyn label behind MC Lyte, Audio Two, and Positive K - and road manager Maurice Campbell, who together helped shepherd two young, unpolished talents through the whirlwind of a major-label rollout. It was a defining moment: a real single, on a real label, on a compilation that hip-hop historians still dig up and celebrate three decades later.

The sound, the circle, the city

II Unorthodox came up in the era when a feature verse meant something - when the culture was built on cyphers, radio freestyles, and who you could hold your own next to. Over the years that followed the Arista release, Cid and Nytty crossed paths and traded bars with a wide circle of New York-bred talent, including Sons of Man, Da Bush Babies, and The Franchise Boys - the group that brought together Red Cafe, Q The Kid (also known as GQ and Scott King), and Gravy before each of them stepped out on his own. Red Cafe went on to a solo career, Q The Kid became a solo artist, and Gravy built a solo music and acting career, going on to play The Notorious B.I.G. in the 2009 film Notorious. Like II Unorthodox, they were all grinding to turn raw talent into a lasting name in one of the most competitive scenes hip-hop has ever produced.

Cid Nino's solo journey

While II Unorthodox moved through its cycles of reunion and hiatus, Cid Nino kept building on his own. In the years leading up to 2020, he linked up in the studio with Mims - the New York artist behind the multi-platinum, Billboard-topping single "This Is Why I'm Hot" - as well as Jason "Jase" Dalyrimple, known as Jase4Real, the lead vocalist of the platinum-selling R&B group Soul For Real ("Candy Rain," "Every Little Thing I Do"). He also collaborated with Frank Lucas Jr., son of Frank Lucas, the Harlem figure whose life became the basis for the 2007 film American Gangster. Those records rounded out Cid's catalog just before everything changed in 2020, when his health crisis began.

The grind years

A hit single doesn't guarantee a career, and the years after "Just A Little Flava" tested both men in ways the industry rarely talks about. Like so many artists who tasted a major-label moment in the '90s only to watch the machine move on, Cid and Nytty faced real hardship - bills, family responsibilities, and the day-to-day fight to make ends meet while still chasing the sound in their heads. Both men did what they had to do to survive, all while the music never fully let go of them.

Eventually, the pull of the booth brought them back together. II Unorthodox regrouped a second time and signed on with Sky High Records, recommitting to the group project that started it all. But personal issues - the same pressures that break up families as often as they break up groups - pulled Cid and Nytty apart again, and the II Unorthodox partnership went on another hiatus.

Through it all - the label deals that came and went, the years apart, the hustle to keep a roof overhead - Cid and Nytty stayed connected. Like family, they had their ups and downs, but the bond never broke. II Unorthodox went quiet at different points along the way, but it was never truly gone; both men kept working, kept writing, kept trying to make something work, refusing to let a 1995 Arista single be the only chapter of their story.

Nytty Byggs' solo journey

Rather than disappear, Nytty Byggs turned the separation into fuel. Working out of Trenton, New Jersey, he built out a solo catalog anchored by New Trap City: Da Blockumentary of Nytty Byggs, Vol. 1, an 18-track solo mixtape blending old-school storytelling with a grittier, street-level sound. The project's centerpiece record, "Pardon Me G'Mix," features Dipset-affiliated veteran J.R. Writer alongside Nessa - a bonus cut bundled with the tape specifically to give longtime fans a taste of classic-era II Unorthodox chemistry alongside Nytty's new solo direction. Nytty continued releasing music independently in the years that followed, keeping his name alive in the mixtape circuit while Cid pursued his own path as a producer, songwriter, and engineer. His solo catalog also includes a self-titled album (2001), a feature on TazDatMC's "The Enforcer" (2021), and the 23-song compilation Best Of Nytty Byggs (2024).

The storm: a fight for life

Around the time COVID-19 upended the world, Cid Nino's own world was upended in a far more personal way. What started as heart trouble escalated into a full medical crisis, and Cid was admitted to Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. What followed was one of the hardest stretches of his life: nearly a year spent slipping in and out of comas, sustained on life support, as doctors and family fought to keep him alive.

On December 29, 2025 - the day after his birthday - Cid Nino received a heart transplant. It was the turning point of the ordeal, and the beginning of a long road to recovery that continues today. True to who he is, Cid didn't wait to be fully healed before returning to the thing he loved most: while still actively in recovery, he was back behind the boards, making beats and writing again, unaware that fate had one more chapter waiting for him.

The return: Comin' For Ya

In the midst of recovery, destiny lined up the way it seems to only for stories worth telling: Cid Nino and Nytty Byggs found their way back to each other. Decades after a Brooklyn studio session turned into an Arista Records single, and years after label deals, hardship, and health battles tried to write a different ending, II Unorthodox reunited to build what both men are calling the most complete, most iconic body of work of their careers: a new 13-track album titled Comin' For Ya, coming soon under new management, StreetLyfe Entertainment, in partnership with Next Hit Makers.

Comin' For Ya finds Cid and Nytty performing together as II Unorthodox once again, trading verses over a hard-hitting title track that blends that hardcore edge with the same chemistry that made "Just A Little Flava" a standout more than thirty years ago - except now it's carried by two men who have survived label politics, personal hardship, and, in Cid's case, a literal fight for his life to get back in the room together.

It is, by any measure, a comeback that was a long time coming - not a manufactured reunion, but two brothers-in-music who never stopped believing there was one more record in them worth making.

13 tracks. One reunion. Decades in the making.

The legacy

From a 1995 Arista Records cut sitting shoulder to shoulder with DJ Premier and KRS-One, through years of hardship, a label reunion that didn't last, solo records built to survive, and a health battle that very nearly ended the story altogether - II Unorthodox is proof that real artistry doesn't expire. Cid Nino and Nytty Byggs are living evidence that the culture rewards the ones who refuse to stop, no matter how long the road, no matter how many times life tries to close the book. With Comin' For Ya, II Unorthodox isn't just back - they're just getting started.