Today In Hip Hop History: Geto Boys’ Bushwick Bill Passes Away Five Years Ago
Written by on June 10, 2024
On this date in 2019, Richard Shaw who is better known as “Bushwick Bill” to the Hip Hop world, died after a short battle with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Bill was 52 years old.
One of the original members of the Houston-based Geto Boys, Bill appeared on the group’s debut album Making Trouble and managed to stick around when Rap-A-Lot Records CEO J. Prince restructured the group. Prince kept Bill and NJ-born DJ Reddy Red and recruited Houston newcomers Willie D and Brad “Scarface” Jordan. The new collective dropped the group’s second LP, Grip It On That Other Level in 1989, which is considered a Horrorcore classic. The group’s third album, 1991’s We Can’t Be Stopped, was the epitome of the trio’s success and controversy, with the album being certified platinum less than a year after its release, but the album’s cover art showing Bill’s self-inflicted gunshot injury to his eye raised the most eyebrows about the group’s content.
When asked about the impact of that unforgettable album cover, Bushwick regretfully said, “It still hurts me to look at that cover because that was a personal thing I went through… I still feel the pain from the fact I’ve got a bullet in my brain… I think it was pretty wrong to do it, even though I went along with the program at first.”
Bill announced a month before his passing that he was diagnosed with cancer, but died shortly thereafter.
Bushwick Bill will forever be remembered as an unequivocal part of Hip Hop history!
The post Today In Hip Hop History: Geto Boys’ Bushwick Bill Passes Away Five Years Ago first appeared on The Source.
The post Today In Hip Hop History: Geto Boys’ Bushwick Bill Passes Away Five Years Ago appeared first on The Source.
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