When you’re hot you’re hot. When you’re not – yeah, you know. No question, Scarface, Willie D, and Bushwick Bill have always been hot. But The Geto Boys image has been clouded with personnel changes throughout the last decade. Perhaps that’s why it’s been difficult to get The Foundation the look it deserves. But the “real” Geto Boys are back with a vengeance.
Few people have ever gotten a straight answer to the reason behind the inner-rifts of the group. But, AllHipHop.com wanted truth. As true fans of classics like “Size Ain’t,” “My Mind Playin’ Tricks on Me” and “Do It Like a G.O," there really only was the original lineup. So we gathered Bushwick Bill and Willie D to reflect on each other, Mr. Scarface, and the importance of the return of the illest, sickest, loudest, angriest group ever: the Geto Boys. Plus, as an added bonus, you’ll get juicy details about the last time somebody beat down Willie D, and why Bushwick Bill doesn’t like your favorite video. So read the feature, and run out and cop The Foundation, dummy!
AllHipHop.com: You have a rich legacy. It’s got to be hard to push the envelope any higher. What advancement does The Foundation make?
Bushwick Bill: Personally, Geto Boys is not actually gaining new ground. It’s like picking up a book on Da Vinci. As long as things have a history of making a mark not only on society, but in society, then the structure of society never changes. Those individuals, or that person will always have something to say on the growth or decline of their environment. All Geto Boys ever did was talking about the trials and tribulations of the ghetto – living in it, and trying to get out of it, and making it out of it, then wanting to go back and hang with your peoples, and them feel like you done lost everything because you’re not there in the hood no more. But if you’re on TV and worldwide known and got a number one record in the nation and you livin’ in the hood, people think somebody’s f**kin’ you.
Willie D: I think that the biggest advancement this album makes is that we just know a little bit more about the business, about the world. We always tryin’ to learn more. All of us, in our own right, are information buffs. We always got somethin’ to say. We always have a different spin on the way you see things, the way you look at things. Geto Boys, as you know, we never been afraid to touch on those things that, if other people say, they feel might alienate people [or] reduce their fan-base.
AllHipHop.com: Right, even on the single, "Yes Yes Y’all," Bushwick Bill said, "Can’t stand f***ots." That’s alienation right there.
Willie D: [laughs] Right. [Because] we just feel like we not gonna be accepted anyway. We don’t fit the status-quo. We’re never gonna be able to please everybody, anyway. Even if we tried to do what everybody is doing, the people that really know us would say, "That ain’t the Geto Boys." The new people that have gotten their hands on the Geto Boys stuff, [even] they’d be like, "That ain’t no groundbreaking s**t, that’s the same thing everybody else is doing." So we have to continue to just do what we do. There’s several songs on the album that have the same undertones.
AllHipHop.com: But you personally have toned it down with the screaming and whatnot. What’s the motive behind that?
Willie D: I’m the type of person, I do listen. When I [was a Geto Boy in the past], there’s always been a certain role that people expect you to play. So I think, the best way to describe that role would be as a supporting role. [I was] somebody who came in, and even if he only came in for a minutes, he made a major impact on the album. That can get exhausting, if you do a whole album of it. It can be too much. I pick certain songs where I think I need to raise that level. There’s different levels and different volumes of anger. Plus, I don’t have to worry about losing my vocal chords at the show.
AllHipHop.com: You guys were open to rhyming freely about rape, murder, torture. But then you had this joint,"The Unseen," about anti-abortion. That seemed like an unlikely politic.
Bushwick Bill: Plain and simple. They can’t do what the Orientals did and deny that they exist on this planet. But if people in general, start committing abortion because they want to, but not because there’s a serious cause for it. It’s like another version of Edo G’s "Be a Father to Your Child." If you gonna be there and make a baby, be a father.
AllHipHop.com: All three of you truly felt that, then?
Bushwick Bill: Yes. Willie wasn’t on that song. It was me, Big Mike, and Scarface.
AllHipHop.com: In our last interview, you revealed that the Geto Boys was a put-together group in the 80’s. Even though you guys have been through a lot, you’re not the best of friends. With this album being a reunion were there resolutions and new bonds formed at all?
Willie D: No, not necessarily. It was really done more like, "Okay, this is what we’re doin’, this is what we gotta do, let’s do this s**t, and go on about our business. Let’s do this record and get the f**k home."
AllHipHop.com: Ironically, that seems like the Geto Boys attitude from the rhymes on the records.
Willie D: It has! Even the very first album we ever did, we was f**kin’ back and forth like that. You have these strong personalities and s**t. Lotta times, we didn’t have a choice of being around each other and somebody sayin’, "I don’t like that motherf**ka, I don’t wanna be around him." J [Prince] was the mastermind behind putting the Geto Boys together. He looked at this f**kin’ puzzle and said, "Let me get that piece, that piece, and this piece to complete my puzzle." The pieces, the only thing that they had in common, was that they completed a picture. That’s the way we came together. Most groups, people get a chance to know each other and say, ‘That’s a cool person, I’d like to work with him.’ We never had the option. We found out real fast that we was very, very different.
Bushwick Bill: Because we’re three separate individuals. We hang with different people. We might bump into each other at the same clubs, maybe. From the beginning, me and ‘Face shared an apartment together. Will always had his own spot. [DJ Reddy Red] had his own spot. When we went on the road, promoters would get three large rooms. One for the manager. Will and ‘Face would chill. Me and DJ Reddy Red would chill. We could never be around each that much. I mean [Scarface] and I shared an apartment. I might come around in the morning, and he might be goin’ out at the same time I’m comin’ in. We always moved on different schedules. We moved to a different beat, except when we’re composing. It’s not like we hate each other, it’s just that I know ‘Face well enough. He knows me well enough. I know of Willie D, he knows of me. Each one of us was looking at doing our own projects when they put us together to do Geto Boys. We never planned on neglecting The Foundation as what’s gonna get our name out there. But you can’t join the ship at mid-stream.
AllHipHop.com: Do you think there were kinks when this project came into place because it had been ten years?
Willie D: Right off the bat! For one, we was never in the same studio, ever, at one time. That was the first time that had ever happened.
AllHipHop.com: When was the first time you saw each other again, for the video?
Willie D: Nah, nah, actually for a promotional photo shoot [was the first time] all three [were] together. I worked with ‘Face in the studio. I worked with Bill in the studio. ‘Face and Bill never worked together.
Bushwick Bill: It’s deeper than just me. You gotta remember, I haven’t been around for a while, so I’m seeing s**t from a different angle. When I’m answering questions, certain people don’t want to be in the studio with certain people because if I rap a style, somebody might adapt that style. It was a lot of stuff that had nothing to do with me or this project. Plus, you do a hook, that hook might end up on somebody’s solo album.
AllHipHop.com: So it’s ego?
Bushwick Bill: Not so much ego. It was about who is gonna put out the hottest project. If somebody get a whim of what you workin’ on, they might look at their project. The reason why I love workin’ on a Geto Boys album is really not for the people I work with, but the music we create together.