Even Stopped’s cover - Dennis and Jordan wheeling Shaw, sitting up on a gurney with an injured, exposed right eye and talking on an old-school cellphone - was meant to be disturbing. I’m paranoid, sleepin’ with my finger on the trigger.Īs “Mind” went gold and eventually became one of the most popular tunes to come out of the gangsta rap genre, the Boys became known as hip-hop artists who didn’t mind forcing people out of their comfort zones. Nowhere is this more apparent than on Stopped’s first single, and the group’s biggest hit, “Mind Playing Tricks on Me.” Scarface starts off lamenting the thoughts that keep him up at night:Ĭandlesticks in the dark, visions of bodies bein’ burned But it was Scarface who was the group’s most conflicted MC, unloading his personal and mental demons on wax. Willie D was still a brash cad, turning out such lyrical insolence as “I’m Not A Gentleman” and “Trophy,” while Bushwick Bill teetered between being a raving psycho ( “Chuckie”) and a threesome-igniting playboy ( “The Other Level”). Now a three-man unit consisting of Willie “Willie D” Dennis, Brad “Scarface” Jordan and the diminutive Richard “Bushwick Bill” Shaw (Collins “DJ Ready Red” Leysath quit the group during the album’s production), the Boys were in an unapologetic mode, making sure the industry suits who shook in their loafers at their previous work knew that they weren’t watering down their sound. Records.įor their following album, We Can’t Be Stopped, the Boys went back to Houston’s Rap-A-Lot Records, the label that created the group in the first place. This prompted Rubin to arrange alternative distribution through Warner Bros. However, the Boys had a falling out with Geffen, the label’s distributor, who didn’t want anything to do with the Boys’ graphic, violent, misogynistic lyrics. The Geto Boys was remixed by producer Rick Rubin, whose Def American label they were signed to. A year before, in 1990, they released their eponymous album The Geto Boys, which contained music from their first two albums, Making Trouble (1988) and Grip It! On That Other Level (1989). Twenty-six years ago, the Geto Boys were quickly becoming one of the most controversial groups on the Houston music scene.