When Rick Rubin’s Geffen imprint Def American scooped the group up in 1989, he upped the ante-with more liberal and more graphic use of Bill taking center stage.Įnter the expanded version of the previously released “Mind of a Lunatic,” the aptly titled fantasy of rape and necrophilia, in which Bill is the voice behind the opening and most violent lines. Coming off their second album, Grip it! On That Other Level, the Geto Boys already had shock value going for them. “In his defiance and joy,” Hughes, who himself identifies as a short-statured person, writes, “Bushwick Bill remains a role model for me in how to live as a short person in all its messy complexity.”Īnd messy it was.
To his credit, Hughes doesn’t sugarcoat any of the ways Bill was exploited on his rise to stardom, touching upon the history of freak shows, the stigma of disability, and Bill’s own stubborn embrace of the ample controversy that came his way, too. Bill was also born with dwarfism and suffered from mental health issues throughout his life. But sometimes, mattering can be complicated and more than a little problematic. He was a gifted MC, with a galloping flow and oversexed imagination that calls to mind the legendary Queens rapper Kool G Rap.
Hughes’ new book, Why Bushwick Bill Matters, tells the whole story, from his youth in Jamaica and Brooklyn-he was born Richard Shaw- to his tenure as club dancer Little Billy to his key years as a horrorcore rapper and his unlikely turn as a solo gospel artist.
Bushwick Bill, who died in 2019 of pancreatic cancer, helped put Houston hip-hop on the map.
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