I can still remember the first time I was first introduced to the Geto Boys from a homie that lived in San Antonio. This was in 89’. We were on the phone and he played a cassette for me thru the receiver. It was one of the tracks off their album that hadn’t even been released yet, ‘Mind Of A Lunatic’. This was the first time I’d ever heard something with such a funky, hardcore grimy ass sound – straight rawness. And the kicker, the first verse was laid down by a dwarfed rapper named Bushwick Bill.

When the entire album finally dropped in 1990, the impact it had on us suburban white kids in Jersey was just crazy. That whole summer of 90’, the GETO BOYS basically became the anthem album for all us skaters and hip hop fiendz. Ya gotta remember, Straight Outta Compton had the same influence and impact but Bill, Willie D, Scarface and Ready Red created something lyrically visual that completely changed our mindset of Houston. To white kids in Jersey, the only connection we had to Houston was if you were an Astros or Oilers fan. Otherwise, it was just one of the few cities in Texas we learned about in Geography class.

Bill became an icon to us. The album cover of Willie D and Scarface wheeling Bushwick into a hospital after shooting himself in the face, solidified him as a legend in our eyes in a fucked up twisted way. ‘Chucky’ was basically the first to do the whole ‘horrorcore’ thing and created a legacy that will never be surmounted.

I can remember driving around in the homies red Beamer blasting GETO BOYS on his system blowin’ out his Blaupunkts.

Rest Easy Richard Stephen Shaw

December 8, 1966 – June 9, 2019

FUCK CANCER