Geto Boys

Easily one the greatest hip hop groups to ever set foot in a recording booth, the Geto Boys command respect from hip hop fans both young and old. Known and loved by ghetto dwellers world wide for their uncompromising stance against all of the racists, snitches, crooked cops and hypocritical politicians who sought to silence them. But with their ninth LP War & Peace, the Geto Boys prove once and for all they really can’t be stopped.

Considered the classic GB line up, Bushwick Bill, Scarface and Willie D first emerged as the Geto Boys back in 1989 with their monumental record “Grip It on That Other Level” on the Southern independent label Rap-A-Lot. The record contained the classic songs “Gangsta of Love,” “Balls & My Words” and “Mind of a Lunatic.” Filled with raw beats and pure ghetto angst, “Grip It On That Other Level” became an instant hit with rap fans and earned them a deal with the legendary hip hop producer/entrepreneur Rick Rubin, who inked a split label deal with Rap-A-Lot to re-release a reworked version of the LP on his Warner distributed Def American label. But as soon as word about the kind of lyrics that was on the album reached the powers that be the Geto Boys found themselves in the eye of a political storm. PMRC founder Tipper Gore and Sen. Bob Dole placed pressure on Time/Warner to drop the album altogether. Fortunately the Geto Boys prevailed and their national debut The Geto Boys was unleashed on the public. The record went gold with no air play or video. Thus begin a string of critical and commercially successful albums like We Can’t Be Stopped (Platinum), a greatest hits collection called Geto Dope (Gold), Till Death Due Us Part (Platinum) sans Willie D who left the group to pursue a solo career. Willie D rejoined the trio on the powerful reunion LP Resurrection and remained with the group up until their last album, The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, which saw Bushwic AWOL.

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly also marks the GBs last studio album. After the LP was released the GB went on a long hiatus as each member pursued their solo careers. But try as they might the streets just wouldn’t let them go. Everywhere they went, fans were asking them when they were going to get back together and drop another album.

“We were really feeling the pressure,” says Willie D. “Fans were really wanting a new album from us so I took the initiative to get at everybody one by one. I had to facilitate the whole thing because we hadn’t all been on the same page. I had been in touch with Brad for a minute and we both had been talking about doing a Geto Boys album. He told me that he was with it. Then I reached out to Bushwic and convince him to do it. Then I called Lil J and asked him if he was with it. He said yeah. Once everybody was with it we just got in the studio and knocked it out.”
War & Peace is just what fans of the Geto Boys expect from the legendary trio. It’s full of the raw ghetto angst and hardcore gangsta beats that made the GBs a hip hop institution. According to Willie D, sticking to the script both sonically and thematically is what the GBs new album so great.

“It’s definitely not a departure form the old Geto Boys shit,” say a proud Willie D, when asked about War & Peace. “The only thing that is really different about the album is the beats are more up-tempo. But our energy level is still the same and our subject matter is still the same. We’re still championing the cause of the underserved. We’re still Geto Boys for life.”