Spinner

Twisted Tales: Bushwick Bill Asks for and Receives a Bullet in the Eye

To become a highly successful shock rocker, all it seems to take is slapping on a ghoulish makeup job, slipping into your big sister's corset and re-enacting your favorite Vincent Price movie onstage. But even in the hip-hop world, where the concept of "keepin' it real" is sometimes regrettably all too strictly adhered to, not many have taken that credo to the extreme degree that Bushwick Bill, of Houston gangsta-horror-rap group Geto Boys, has. And while thousand of singers have regaled us in countless songs about the sacrifices they would make, the three-and-a-half-foot-tall rapper actually put his money where his mouth is -- or, rather, where his eye was.

The Geto Boys, with Scarface and Willie D rounding out the trio, formed in the late '80s, and from the beginning were awash in controversy. Owing their early sound to gangsta rappers such as N.W.A., the trio would subsequently present a world view a lot more gruesome than even the harsh ghetto realities portrayed by their West Coast counterparts. With psychopathic tales of murder and necrophilia turning up in tracks like 'Mind of a Lunatic,' they laid the foundation for the hip-hop subgenre of horrorcore, as practiced by '90s rap groups the Gravediggaz and the Flatlinerz.

In May 1991, Bushwick Bill, either in a suicidal funk, a drunken rage or as a scheme to have his mother collect on his insurance policy (Bill himself intimates that it was a combination of all three), began goading his 17-year-old girlfriend into shooting him. Some reports say he had threatened to harm the child they had together if she refused to go through with the deed. What actually transpired has never been divulged by either party involved, but by either his or her hand, Bill caught a slug in the right eye. A photo of Bill, his eye clearly and significantly bloodied, being wheeled down a hospital corridor on a gurney with the other two Geto Boys flanking him became the front cover of their next and most successful album, both creatively and in sales, 1991's 'We Can't Be Stopped.' The novelty of Bushwick Bill going from being a dwarf rapper to a one-eyed dwarf rapper helped the record gain both publicity and credibility. It also helped that the platinum-selling LP contained the Geto Boys' undisputed high point, the bleak yet affecting 'Mind Playing Tricks on Me,' the trio's only No. 1 rap single.

These days, Bushwick Bill has reinvented himself as a Christian -- one can wonder if a certain line from the Book of Exodus concerning an eye for an eye will be part of his hip-hop homily.

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cobain

Technically, it has been divulged by Bushwick. Just go back and read the lyrics to "Ever So Clear" from the early '90s. Bushwick raps about the occurance.

"And it's gettin outta hand, G
Cuz nobody seems to understand me
Reminiscin got me feelin kinda low
I broke out the Ever-Clear and then I drunk some mo'
Until it was all gone
Now I'm lookin for somebody to take my pain out on
But not just anybody, G
I'ma take that on Tameka cuz she's the closest to me
Full of that Ever-Clear and high on that buddah
Get to the house all I'm thinkin bout is shootin her
Cuz shootin her would be sweet
But you know what'd be sweeter? if I make her shoot me
Call me crazy, but that's what I'm thinkin
I'm trippin from all that smokin weed and drinkin
But I knew she wouldn't do it on her own, so I provoked her
Punched her, kicked her, and choked her
She still wouldn't grab the gun
And at that time I wasn't thinkin about no one
Damn near crazy I went and grabbed the baby
Held him by the door and said i'ma throw his ass out, hoe
She went to cryin, "somebody stop him!"
I said, "you better grab the muthafuckin gun or i'ma drop him"
She snatched the baby out of my hands
We started fighting, punching, scratching, and biting
When we fell on the bed, check this shit
All kinds of crazy shit was goin through my head
So I ran and got the gun and came back to her
Loaded it up and handed the gat to her
I grabbed her hand and placed the gun to my eye muscle
She screamed stop and then we broke into another tussle
Yo, durin the fight the gun went off quick
Damn! aw shit, I'm hit

(Aw... my eye, I can't see
Why you shot me in the eye?
I woulda shot you in the body
Why you shot me in the eye?)

Ridin in the ambulance everything is hectic
I can't get a grip, I just can't check this
Everybody's cryin, could it be I'm dyin
Bullet in my head, in the bed was lyin
Where's Meka? I wanna tell her I love her
With an IV in my arm I took a picture for an album cover
Goddamn, the shit's a trip, G
Five different doctors with needles tryin to stick me
I hear my family hollerin he needs us
During the confusion, man, I seen jesus
My mom's on the phone long-distance from New York
Here comes the doctors again tryin to rip me apart
I got a monkey on my back, I can't shake it
I'm havin suicidal thoughts hopin that I don't make it
But I'ma make it cuz something's steady urgin me
Five hours passed, I made it through surgery
And the doctor said I wouldn't make it through the night
But god told me everything is gonna be alright
And I'm glad that I'm here, G
But it's fucked up I had to lose an eye to see shit clearly"

May 21 2007 at 11:50 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply