Geto Boys "Mind Playing Tricks On Me"

Album: We Can't Be Stopped (Rap A Lot; 1991)
R&B Peak Position: #10

"Day by day its more impossible to cope/ I feel like I'm the one thats doing dope..."

No other rap act was as simultaneously frightening and enticing as the Geto Boys, a no-holds-barred Houston trio whose rhymes spent a considerable amount of vividly-penned focus on misogynist themes and extreme violence scenarios. Their vulgar, "horror-hop" banter made them targets of disgusted politicians, parents and music journalists, but the imagination (and beats) behind those records (not to mention their showing of strong rap talent from the Southern region) earned them critical praise as well. Such positive acclaim would reach an apex with 1991's incredible "Mind Playing Tricks On Me".

"The Twilight Zone" put to a deep funk beat, "Mind Playing Tricks On Me" followed the efforts of Geto Boys' controversial "Mind of a Lunatic" in it's creepy depiction of men losing touch with reality. Scarface, Willie D and Bushwick Bill narrate gothic, street-set vignettes featuring themselves crumbling apart by a growing sense of fear and paranoia.

Day- and nightmares of shadowy figures watching them from afar, tapping their phones and tailing their cars haunt them endlessly. Their attempts at sleep are proving pointless in this heightened sense of panic and even the most innocent of strangers feel threatening. Willie wonders if it's someone from his past coming back for revenge ("Is it that fool that I ran off the block?/ Or is it that nigga last week that I shot?/ Or is it the one I beat for five thousand dollars?/ Thought he had 'caine but it was Gold Medal flour"). Meanwhile, Face, getting little salvation from the church and left lonely after pushing his girl away, is driven to thoughts of suicide until he realizes that he doesn't want to leave his son without a father.

The production's looping of Isaac Hayes' "Hung Up On My Baby" (from the soul icon's 1974 album, Tough Guys) only helps in adding a thickened, spooky air over the proceedings, the vocal-less hook's striking guitar line sounding like cackling taunts from the ghostly monsters hidden in the corners of the Geto Boys' minds.

Accused of glamorizing thug life in the past, "Mind" saw the Geto Boys presenting an intoxicating alternate perspective, casting a gloom-filled light on the mind-crippling after-effects the lifestyle could cause. Hip hop critics and fans took note of this and championed it an instant classic upon it's release; it also broke the group onto radio airwaves for the first time, leading to their first, and only, reaching of Platinum sales for "Mind"'s parent album, We Can't Be Stopped.

Best Moment: Bushwick's verse ("My hands were all bloody from punching on the concrete...").



DL: "Mind Playing Tricks On Me" (YFH)