GETO BOYS

Formed: 1986, Houston, Texas

Members: Scarface, vocals (Brad Jordan, born Houston, Texas, 9 November 1969); Bushwick Bill, vocals (Richard Shaw, born Jamaica, 8 December 1966); Willie D, vocals (William Dennis, born Houston, Texas, 11 November 1966); Big Mike, vocals (Michael Banks)

Genre: Hip-Hop

Best-selling album since 1990: We Can't Be Stopped (1991)

Hit songs since 1990: "Mind Playing Tricks on Me"

The Geto Boys were the first hip-hop group from Houston, Texas—and one of the first from the southern United States—to achieve national popularity. Their music paints intensely detailed and reflective pictures of drug use, poverty, and psychosis.

Although the name "Geto Boys" had been used by a variety of groups on James Smith's Houston-based Rap-A-Lot label since 1986, their best known and most influential incarnation came together in 1989. The group consisted of three MCs (rappers): Scarface, Willie D, and Bushwick Bill. Willie D provided an energetic, almost hyperactive, militancy, whereas Scarface brought an observant and poetic self-awareness. Bushwick Bill, standing four feet tall, completed the trio with a sense of volatile, barely controlled rage.

The Geto Boys's ascent into the national consciousness began with the album Grip It! On That Other Level (1989), later re-released as Geto Boys (1990). The album's best-known song, "Mind of a Lunatic," contains a number of first-person depictions of extreme violence, thus creating the impression that rape, murder, and necrophilia were advocated—and possibly committed—by the artists themselves. While such content became commonplace in rap by the middle of the 1990s, at the time it was still troublesome enough to severely restrict their record company's ability to distribute the album to retailers. The album was eventually distributed through Rick Rubin's Def American label and became popular with a nationwide audience.

The popularity of their first album soon led to a second, We Can't Be Stopped (1991). Shortly before the album was released, Bushwick Bill, in what he later characterized as a failed suicide attempt, forced his girlfriend to shoot him in the eye. The album's cover is an apparently authentic photo of Bushwick Bill on a hospital gurney following the incident, flanked by band mates Willie D and Scarface.

In addition to its striking cover, the album also contains Geto Boys's only hit single, "Mind Playing Tricks on Me," which reached number one on the Billboard Hot Rap Singles chart in 1991, and number twenty-three on the Hot 100 in 1992. The song, now considered a hip-hop classic, features a series of verses in which each MC describes a psychological breakdown that he is undergoing. Far from being exploitative, the song shows the emotional toll created by the drug dealing, violence, and misogyny celebrated in other rap songs. "Day by day it's more impossible to cope / I feel like I'm the one that's doing dope," raps Scarface. The lyrics are supported by a slow, blues-influenced melody that reinforces both the southern identity of the group and the desperation of the song's narrators.

Though all of the Geto Boys eventually embarked upon solo careers, only Willie D left the group to do so. His absence was filled by MC Big Mike before the release of Uncut Dope (1992) and Till Death Do Us Part (1993), both of which continued the Geto Boys's tradition of slinky beats and intensely personal lyrics.

In 1994 the group disbanded. Only two years later, though, the most popular Geto Boys incarnation, consisting of Scarface, Willie D, and Bushwick Bill, reunited for the appropriately titled albums The Resurrection (1996) and Da Good, Da Bad & Da Ugly (1998).

The Geto Boys demonstrate that well-crafted, insightful lyricism need not preclude realistic evocations of violence. Their ominous, deep-rooted sound brought attention to the music—and lifestyle—of the southern United States at a time when hip-hop was dominated by groups from the East and West coasts.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

Grip It! On That Other Level (Rap-A-Lot, 1989); Geto Boys (Rap-A-Lot, 1990); We Can't Be Stopped (Rap-A-Lot, 1991); Uncut Dope (Rap-A-Lot, 1992); Till Death Do Us Part (Rap-A-Lot, 1993); The Resurrection (Rap-A-Lot, 1996); Da Good, Da Bad & Da Ugly (Rap-A-Lot, 1998).

joe schloss