Today in Hip-Hop — November 1: Willie D Turns 60, and the Geto Boy Who Didn’t Know He Was on a Classic

November 1, 1966. William James Dennis is born in Houston, Texas. Today Willie D turns 60. Here’s the jewel. When the Geto Boys cut “Mind Playing Tricks on Me,” the record that put Southern rap on the national map, Willie D didn’t think it was anything special. “I didn’t even know ‘Mind Playin’ Tricks’ was anything special,” he admitted years later. “I didn’t know how to pick songs back then.” He wrote one verse on the song that made the South impossible to ignore, and he didn’t know it yet.

The Solo Artist Who Got Drafted

Willie D was never supposed to be a Geto Boy. He came up as a fighter, a Houston amateur boxer with hands before he had bars, and he signed to Rap-A-Lot as a solo act in 1988. Then the group’s debut, Making Trouble, went nowhere, and J. Prince tore up the lineup. He kept DJ Ready Red and Bushwick Bill, added Willie D as a favor, and held auditions for a young rapper called Akshen, who you know as Scarface. Willie went in reluctant because he wanted his own album. He got one anyway: Controversy landed in December 1989, months after Grip It! On That Other Level sold its way out of Texas independently. Willie penned “Gangster of Love,” “Size Ain’t Shit,” “Do It Like a G.O.” and “Read These Nikes” on that record.

Then came 1991. Scarface had written “Mind Playing Tricks on Me” for himself, built off something his grandmother used to mumble, over an uncredited flip of Isaac Hayes’ “Hung Up on My Baby.” J. Prince heard it and said it had to be a Geto Boys record. Willie went into the studio and wrote verse two. Face kept verses one and three, and Bushwick Bill took the fourth. It reached #23 on the Hot 100, the group’s highest-charting single ever, and #1 on the rap chart. In 2012 Rolling Stone ranked it the fifth-greatest hip-hop song of all time. Kid Cudi has said “Day ‘n’ Nite” exists because of it. Willie left after We Can’t Be Stopped, put out I’m Goin’ Out Lika Soldier in 1992, and came back for The Resurrection in 1996. Sixty years in, he’s still the loudest voice in the room.

The Record Geffen Wouldn’t Touch

In 1990 Rick Rubin remixed the Grip It! material for Def American, and Geffen flat-out refused to distribute it. Warner Bros. ended up putting it out, with a disclaimer stuck on the sleeve. The last track on that record is “City Under Siege.” We made a Geto Boys City Under Siege tee for the heads who remember when Houston was too much for the majors. Happy 60th, Willie D.

Also Today in Hip-Hop

• 1988: The Great Adventures of Slick Rick (38 years). The Ruler’s solo debut on Def Jam spent five nonconsecutive weeks at #1 on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop albums chart, and The Source later gave it a perfect five mics. “Children’s Story” is still the storytelling standard. Rock the Great Adventures of Slick Rick tee.
• 1994: Brand Nubian’s Everything Is Everything and Lords of the Underground’s Keepers of the Funk (32 years). A heavy East Coast Tuesday. Lord Jamar and Buckwild handled the Brand Nubian beats, led by “Word Is Bond.” Marley Marl and K-Def worked on the Lords record, which had “Tic Toc” on it.
• 2011: Wale’s Ambition (15 years). His first album on Maybach Music. It debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200 with 164,000 copies in its first week.
• Lil Peep would have turned 30 today. He was born November 1, 1996, and he dragged emo and hip-hop into the same room before anyone had a word for it.
• Rest in power, Takeoff. The quietest Migo, and maybe the sharpest, was killed in Houston four years ago today, on November 1, 2022. He was 28.

Stay creative — The Custom Creative Team

Jon Jones