The following day, Prince summoned Dennis and Jordan to the hospital, where they flanked Shaw on a gurney, cell phone in hand and bandage removed, for a gruesome image that would grace the cover of 'We Can't Be Stopped,' which was released later that year.

Prince and Rap-A-Lot made good use of Shaw's unflappable response to the incident. 'By the time the story hit the morning news, Bushwick had lost his eye,' Prince wrote in his biography, 'but everything else about him seemed pretty Bushwick Bill.' Their accounts of the incident differed, but the end result was the same: Shaw ended up with a gunshot wound to his right eye. Prior to the album's release, Shaw got rampaging drunk on Everclear in May 1991 and ended up in an violent altercation with his girlfriend. Then came 'We Can't Be Stopped.' Released in 1991, the album remains a rap classic, and it proved provocative on arrival, thanks to Shaw. It's a remarkable album capturing the trio on the brink. 'The Geto Boys,' released in 1989, had wider distribution and included some repurposed material from 'Grip It!' It was a fevered summer album, with slasher film violence described so vividly that some retail outlets wouldn't sell it. 'But you take them to the movies to watch Schwarzenegger.' The Geto Boys struck a nerve with 'Grip It!' a bracing blast of sound from Houston, a city largely kept out of the rap conversation which was often defined by sounds from New York and Los Angeles.ДЄs Bill Shaw voiced some of Dennis' grievances about cultural hypocrisy as on 'Talkin' Loud Ain't Saying Nothin'': 'You don't want your kids to hear songs of this nature,' he rapped. What did America expect them to talk about on their records?' Bushwick Bill was a Jamaican dwarf with a drug and alcohol problem. Scarface had dealt with depression as a child he'd tried to commit suicide, and often joked about making another attempt. He often talked about the abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother and how that affected him as a child.

Willie D was born in the Fifth Ward to alcoholic parents. Prince, founder of Rap-A-Lot Records, put it succinctly in his book 'The Art and Science of Respect': 'The new Ghetto Boys lineup was a blend of interesting characters with colorful personalities who had already been through a lot in their lives. 'When I became a rapper, it's like if you heard the name Bushwick Bill and heard my voice I promise you'd never forget that you'd heard me.' 'You pick your own lane and create your own character,' Shaw said in Rolf Potts' book about 'The Geto Boys,' the trio's third album. 'J wanted him to be a dancer at first, but he jumped off of that real quick,' Ghetto Boys rapper Raheem (Oscar Ceres) said in the book 'Houston Rap Tapes.' 'He didn't want to be a gimmick.'Дennis recalled hearing Shaw rapping some Public Enemy lines and suggested he be given some material. Shortly after that album's release, the Ghetto Boys were overhauled with new MCs вЂ“ Jordan and Dennis вЂ“ and a new name: the Geto Boys.Д¬AN'T BE STOPPED: UnapologeticВ Geto Boys put Houston hip-hop on the mapДЄs the new ensemble began work on what would become 'Grip It! On That Other Level,' Shaw was recruited into the Geto Boys as a member. Around 1986, Little Billy began transforming into Bushwick Bill, a frenetic and comic voice that first appeared on 'The Problem,' the sketch that closes the group's 'Making Trouble' album from 1988. In the mid-'80s he packed up for Houston, where he lived with his sister. His family moved to New York when he was 6, and he grew up in the city's Bushwick neighborhood, and came of age in the city's nascent and vibrant hip-hop culture. Little Billy was recruited as a hype man and break dancer. Then known as Lil' J, Prince built the original Ghetto Boys around beats by another northeastern artist who had moved to Houston: DJ Ready Red, a New Jersey transplant. Shaw was recruited by James Prince, who would found Rap-A-Lot Records. Shaw first found the stage as Little Billy, a break dancer who worked various club stages around the city.Д«efore the classic Geto Boys lineup was set, the group was the Ghetto Boys, which featured neither Dennis nor Jordan. 'And in those songs he told us in a very direct way how he dealt with them.' 'They were intensely personal, and he expressed them through such creative means,' he said. Wilkins compared Shaw's ability to turn his troubles into stories to Richard Pryor's. 'He was able to use this very bone-chilling, sometimes emotionless yet captivating voice and delivery to detail the psychological struggles that come with living in an urban environment as an African-American.' 'I interpreted all his verses as his own personal story,' said musicologist and Houston native Langston Collin Wilkinsв€љ, who grew up listening to the Geto Boys.

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