Geto Boys

The Gheto Boys originated at Harvey's Barbershop in 5th Ward when a man with a hole in his throat introduced Willie D then an ex-boxer delivering magazines to James Smith. After the group was dropped by Geffen a necrophilia song was to blame. perhaps Ganksta NIP'S idea and lost members to marriage, and/ or God, Rick Rubin's Def Jam American label finally released "Grip It! On That Other Level" in 1990. The group name was deliberately misspelled another nod to not giving a damn and appeared on the cover with a quadrant of mug shots. On 1991's follow-up, "We Can't Be Stopped," Willie D and Scarce are pictured on the cover escorting Bushwick Bill the group's rap historian and original B-boy on a gurney down a hospital hallway, just after Bill lost an eye to a gun, a girl, and grain alcohol. Bill himself was on the phone as if Chuckie was putting the P.M.R.C. on high alert. The eye-patch was pulled off and the eye itself was taking a long, hard look back inside Bill's mind as if asking, Are we really letting the record label do this? But Scarface, a depressed storyteller with aspirations of herding cattle in retirement, was just warming up. The cover of his 1991 solo platter, "Mr.Scarface Is Back," catches a drug deal gone horribly awry. There's Wille D, future real estate broker for the properties along the Caspian Sea, holding a pump shotgun. There's a heap of the Colombian GNP and the cash that got it there. There's Bushwick Bill's mobile phone. On the back cover, at the bottom of a brief list of thanks, are Luke Campbell and The 2 Live Crew