Geto Boys was a Houston based rap group that formed in 1986 and were the first to put Houston on the hip-hop map. Not only did they formulate a spotlight on hip-hop in the south, but they also introduced a new style of music, the genre of “gangsta rap”. The rappers grew up in Houston’s fifth ward, a musically rich neighborhood in east downtown Houston. The fifth ward is also the home of musicians Arnett Cobb, Milton Larkin, and Illinois Jacquet. The neighborhood became predominantly black in the early 1900’s. Geto Boys, originally “Ghetto Boys” was first made up by “Lil’ J” Smith, owner of Rap-A-Lot Records, which consisted of members Keith Rogers (Sire Juke Box), Thelton Polk (K-9/Sir Rap-A-Lot), and Oscar Ceres (Raheem). They released their first single “Car Freak” which didn’t reach a wide audience. The group then added Bushwick Bill (Richard Shaw) and released the album “Making Trouble” in 1988. Due to creative differences, the band members split and formed the New Geto boys that consisted of Bushwick Bill, Willie D (Willie Dennis), and Scarface (Brad Jordan). This remodel of the group led to the making of “Grip It! On That Other Level”, which received much more success than the previous album. This led to fame and fortune, and in return, controversy.
People don’t want to hear that shit. People want to hear what’s going on around them in everyday life—war, blood, violence. It’s okay for the President to start a war in Iraq, but it’s not okay for me to talk about what I see around me in the ghetto.
Bushwick Bill
This was one of the most popular album covers of their time. Pictured in the wheelchair is Bellwick Bill, who got into an altercation with his girlfriend and got shot in the eye, leading to the removal of his right eyeball. This portrays their violent and sexually explicit music in the most realistic way possible, right in the hospital. “We Can’t Be Stopped” was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. This album features their hit song “Mind Playing Tricks on Me”, which became a huge hit in Texas, NYC and LA, even though they did not receive much radio play time. These southern rappers even got their song on the Billboard pop charts. This legendary picture was attached to a legendary record.
*TW// talks slightly about suicide
A multi-instrumentalist from a long line of musical talent, Scarface had been a fan of metal as a kid. But growing up in Houston’s Southside introduced him to a different kind of hard rock: He went from dropout to local drug dealer coming up. He also spent some time in a hospital psych ward, after trying to kill himself once as a teenager.
Learning to articulate his feelings must have contributed to making him the coldest songwriter in rap, more Southern Gothic than Edgar Allan Poe. Just listen to him in the song’s third verse: One moment he’s in church praying for an exit out the drug game; the next, he’s contemplating suicide.
Rodney Carmichael, NPR
An excerpt from NPR describes the influential musical taste of Scarface, and how that changed the formation and stylistic aspects of this new form of rap. The experiences each member had growing up in the Fifth Ward, and how that was incorporated into the music.
This hip-hop group made music that, in lack of better reference, needed a parental advisory stamp on each song. They rapped about sex, drugs, money, violence, and even police brutality. They made music about the ugly parts of the world that they experience. In an interview, Bushwick Bill describes their take on making music, and he states “I wanna make the world see how ugly it fuckin’ self is” (5:36). Not everyone enjoyed their raw, vulgar truth, but listening to these “gangsta” tunes opened a new audience, who absolutely loved them.
Lyrics: *warning* explicit lyrics
I sit alone in my four-cornered room
Staring at candles
Oh that shit is on? heh
Let me drop some shit like this here
Real smooth
At night I can’t sleep, I toss and turn
Candle sticks in the dark, visions of bodies being burned
Four walls just staring at a n****
I’m paranoid, sleeping with my finger on the trigger
My mother’s always stressing I ain’t living right
But I ain’t going out without a fight
See, everytime my eyes close
I start sweatin, and blood starts comin out my nose
It’s somebody watchin’ the ak’
But I don’t know who it is, so I’m watchin my back
I can see him when I’m deep in the covers
When I awake I don’t see the motherfucker
He owns a black hat like I own
A black suit and a cane like my own
Some might say “take a chill, b”
But fuck that shit, there’s a n**** trying to kill me
I’m pumping in the clip when the wind blows
Every twenty seconds got me peeping out my window
Investigating the joint for traps
Checking my telephone for taps
I’m staring at the woman on the corner
It’s fucked up when your mind is playing tricks on you
I make big money, I drive big cars
Everybody know me, it’s like I’m a movie star
But late at night, somethin ain’t right
I feel I’m being tailed by the same sucker’s head lights
Is it that fool that I ran off the block
Or is it that n**** last week that I shot
Or is it the one I beat for five thousand dollars
Thought he had ‘caine but it was gold medal flour
Reach under my seat, grabbed my popper for the suckers
Ain’t no use to be lying, I was scareder than a motherfucker
But they’re laughing at pow pies and buried that quick
If it’s going down let’s get this shit over with
Here they come, just like I figured
I got my hand on the motherfucking trigger
What I saw’ll make your ass start giggling
Three black, crippled and crazy senior citizens
I live by the sword
I take my boys everywhere I go
Because I’m paranoid
I keep looking over my shoulder and peeping around corners
My mind is playing tricks on me
Day by day it’s more impossible to cope
I feel like I’m the one that’s doing dope
Can’t keep a steady hand because I’m nervous
Every sunday morning I’m in service
Playing for forgiveness
And trying to find an exit out of the business
I know the lord is looking at me
But yet and still it’s hard for me to feel happy
I often drift while I drive
Havin fatal thoughts of suicide
Bang and get it over with
And then I’m worry-free, but that’s bullshit
I got a little boy to look after
And if I died then my child would be a bastard
I had a woman down with me
But to me it seemed like she was down to get me
She helped me out in this shit
But to me she was just another bitch
Now she’s back with her mother
Now I’m realizing that I love her
Now I’m feeling lonely
My mind is playing tricks on me
This year halloween fell on a weekend
Me and geto boyz are trick-or-treating
Robbing little kids for bags
Till an old man got behind our ass
So we speeded up the pace
Took a look back and he was right before our face
He’d be in for a squab’ no doubt
So I swung and hit the n**** in his mouth
He was going down, we figured
But this was no ordinary n****
He stood about six or seven feet
Now, that’s the n**** I’d been seeing in my sleep
So we triple-teamed on him
Dropping them motherfuckin b’s on him
The more I swung the more blood flew
Then he disappeared and my boys disappeared, too
Then I felt just like a fiend
It wasn’t even close to halloween
It was dark as fuck on the streets
My hands were all bloody from punching on the concrete
God damn, homie
My mind is playing tricks on me
Works Cited
Kim, Leezie & Carson, Chad. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 80, No. 25, Ed. 1 Friday, April 2, 1993, newspaper, April 2, 1993; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245839/m1/9/?q=geto+boys: accessed November 3, 2021), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.
Kleiner, Diana. “Fifth Ward, Houston.” TSHA, 1 Jan. 1995, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/fifth-ward-houston.
Lopez, Raymond. “Geto Boys.” TSHA, 29 May 2013, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/geto-boys.
Carmichael, Rodney. “Stressed out: How ‘Mind Playing Tricks on Me’ Gave Anxiety a Home in Hip-Hop.” NPR, NPR, 29 May 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/05/29/726615663/geto-boys-mind-playing-tricks-on-me-anxiety-american-anthem.
