It's been a few weeks since that weird day when we all heard that Bushwick Bill had passed away, then got some false hope that he was still alive, and then got the final confirmation that he was gone. And I've been meaning to do a post to memorialize one of the greatest southern rap groups of all time, and highlight some of his unique contributions to their catalog.

The Geto Boys deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Assassins
2. No Sell Out
3. Gangsta Of Love
4. Scarface
5. Mind Of A Lunatic
6. Size Ain't Shit
7. Fuck Em
8. We Can't Be Stopped
9. Homie Don't Play That
10. Chuckie
11. I'm Not A Gentleman
12. Trophy
13. Fuck A War
14. G.E.T.O.
15. Raise Up
16. Still
17. I Just Wanna Die
18. Livin' 4 The Moment
19. Leanin' On You

Track 1 from Making Trouble (1988)
Tracks 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 from Grip It! On That Other Level (1989)
Tracks 4, 5, 6 and 7 from The Geto Boys (1990)
Tracks 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 from We Can't Be Stopped (1991)
Tracks 14 and 15 from Till Death Do Us Part (1993)
Tracks 16 and 17 from The Resurrection (1996)
Track 18 from Da Good Da Bad & Da Ugly (1998)
Track 19 from The Foundation (2005)

The first album Making Trouble was essentially made by a completely different group than the most famous lineup of the Geto Boys. DJ Ready Red was in the group then, as was Bushwick Bill (then known as Little Billy), who only made a brief spoken appearance on the outro "The Problem." But the whole album is rapped by Sire Jukebox and Prince Johnny C, who were never heard from again (and there were some other dudes, Raheem and Sir Rap-A-Lot, on the singles before that album). Making Trouble sounds more like Run DMC than what we think of as the Geto Boys' sound, but there was still some of the blueprint there, including over-the-top violent lyrics and a ton of samples of Al Pacino in Scarface that would eventually find a more famous home in the song "Scarface" that would  famously lead Brad Jordan to change his MC name from Akshen to Scarface. And the original "Assassins," later re-recorded by the 1990 lineup, has been called the first horrorcore rap song by Violent J of Insane Clown Posse.

For a long time, I just knew We Can't Be Stopped and Till Death Do Us Part and figured that was about as much of the Geto Boys discography as I needed to hear. But then I read one of the best hip hop books in the 33 1/3 series, Geto Boys by Rolf Potts, and came around to the greatness of the group's self-titled album and appreciated its place in history as a watershed moment in both the growth of southern hip hop and the early '90s battles over censorship and extreme content on hip hop albums. I highly recommend the book for anyone interested in the Geto Boys.

Grip It! On That Other Level and Geto Boys are basically the same album, first issued independently by Rap-A-Lot and then remixed by Rick Rubin for a wider release on his Def American label. There are two songs that are only on the former (including "No Sell Out") and two songs that are only on the latter (including "Fuck Em"), but the other 10 songs are the same. "Gangster of Love" was remixed for the later album because of sample clearance, I used the original version with the Steve Miller sample, but the other version with the Lynyrd Skynyrd sample is also great.

The lineup shifted here and there on later albums, Willie D wasn't in the group for Till Death Do Us Part, which had Big Mike as the 3rd MC, and Bushwick wasn't there for Da Good Da Bad & Da Ugly (kind of interesting that the guy with by far the biggest solo career, Scarface, is the only one who never left to focus on his solo career, even after his albums started outselling the group's albums). There's good stuff on the later albums, though, The Resurrection has some very west coast-influenced tracks including "Still," which was of course featured in Office Space along with the more famous single "Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta."

I'll probably do a Scarface deep cuts playlist at some point, he's got one of the greatest discographies in hip hop history. His work for Geto Boys is often just as good, obviously "Mind Playin' Tricks On Me" is a masterpiece, but there's a bigger focus on shock value and violence, even after Face's solo records took a turn toward more contemplative, emotionally nuanced lyrics. Bushwick Bill wasn't much of a writer and Willie D and Scarface wrote a lot of his lyrics, but Bushwick was a really smart, interesting guy and I feel like they gave him a lot of the group's best verses. There's something about his terse, plainspoken delivery that really gives gravitas to what he says, obviously "Size Ain't Shit" is kind of his signature song but then you get some really revealing verses on songs like "I Just Wanna Die," which touches on the suicide attempt that resulted in the infamous We Can't Be Stopped cover.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 31, 2019 at 8:37 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.