[Lyric] OTL 59: Lance Scott Walker Excerpt 3 The Geto Boys Influence (Outside the Lines With Rap Genius)

Lance Scott Walker: Well your first generation of stuff that came out - Wicked Cricket was definitely an early guy, didn't release a record until 1996 but he was an early freestyler and promoter in the clubs and a big part of that early scene. But all the early stuff, including early Geto Boys, it all sounded like East Coast; it all sounded like Run DMC

SameOldShawn: Geto Boys was from New Jersey!

Lance Scott Walker: Yeah, a couple of em. So, it was a sort of imported sound. Ready Red was from New Jersey, Prince Johnny C was from New Jersey. So pretty much all the early records in Houston kinda sounded like Run DMC, kinda sounded like the East Coast. But then once - and it was definitely, definitely the Geto Boys - that changed that. You're talking about '88, somewhere in that area, when things started to get darker. Once the early Geto Boys kinda filtered out and then you saw guys like Willie D and DJ Akshun, who later became known as Scarface, and Bushwick Bill, once you saw those guys coming in and their stories started weighing into the Geto Boys, they really created an entire different art form. What it did was really mobilized everybody in Houston, because they saw the Geto Boys achieve success locally, and then nationally. Even more significantly for them, locally. We talked about this in the books. It showed them that - hey, you can do it. Houston will show you support. They didn't think that was possible before. They didn't think that Houston would support local artists. They just didn't think that was a reality. But that's just because there wasn't enough music out then. Once the Geto Boys really got everybody mobilized and got everybody thinking about making music, you saw how much followed. So that gangster sound comes in the late 80's early 90's... It's still there. Houston's always gonna be gangster. That's always gonna be the sound down there