There’s no definitive reason as to why we chose the group Geto Boys as the focus for the week. Going into it, we know that some of the material may get overlooked because for whatever reason, their careers have to a certain degree. We accept that.

True enough, the proverbial odds were stacked against them – being from the South before it was fashionable, being backed by an independent upstart, no true marketable “star”. As a result, they were almost ahead of their time because they had the “image” then that would make them widely known names now.

But somehow, they made it & set the course of Houston’s history & perhaps that of rap itself when you look @ how many current favs cite Scarface as being their favorite & most respected.

While you often hear Schooly D as being the father of gangsta rap & you think of N.W.A. As the ones who brought the hood to all of America, Geto Boys were the ones who brought it to the hood. Let’s rephrase that….they took what the hood was feeling, what they saw, what it made in them, & then broadcasted it back in audio form. Realism @ in its hardest, most accurate form.

In a way, hearing them rap bridged two generational of Black males from the Black existance. If my dad, a Vietnam vet & all-around hustler & street dude, could rap, I felt like he would’ve passed along some of the same cautionary tales & wisdom that the Houston boys did because you could tell the shit they kicked was fueled by the knowledge of oldheads.

And if I, as a young teen, couldn’t possibly tell my parents, my teachers & that generation, what anger, frustration & pressures I saw daily, then I knew that Geto Boys could with their wicked sense of humor, profanity-laced toungues & borderline insanity. As crazy as I felt @ times, the GB’s managed to put that uncertainity & angst into words that were sharp & coherent stories similar to mine so that I didn’t feel like I was the only one.

So maybe this week is dedicated to youth, both forgotten youth of yesterday & the brazen present-day youth.

While the GB’s have grown older & have been virtually silent, they’re still alive with their music & messages contained in their recorded material. And while I may have lost a lot of my memories of my wonder years from too much of that & too many of this, I’ve never forgotten the coming of age that they helped me realize…

The Geto Boys – Brad, Will & Bill…and sometimes Mike.

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We’re gonna do this a little differently than we did for Nas & Weezy. Instead of bombing you with everything @ once, we’re going to break it down – group, solo’s, b-sides, mixtapes, rareities, appearances, etc etc et. al. As well as a compilation or two of our own.

Group Albums

Geto_Boys-Making_Trouble-1988

Geto_Boys-Grip_It_On_That_Other_Level-1989

Geto_Boys-The_Geto_Boys-1990

Geto_Boys-We_Cant_Be_Stopped-1991

Geto_Boys-Uncut_Dope_Geto_Boys_Best-1992

Geto_Boys-Till_Death_Do_Us_Part–1993

Geto_Boys-The_Resurrection-1996

Geto_Boys-Da_Good_Da_Bad___Da_Ugly-1998

Geto_Boys-Greatest_Hits-2002

Geto_Boys-The_Foundation-2005

Geto Boys Group Shots