Geto Boy Bushwick Bill Passes Away at 52

Bushwick Bill, a rapper with influential rap group Geto Boys, has died aged 52. He had been recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Bushwick Bill was born Richard Shaw in Jamaica, moving first to New York before settling in Houston. His Geto Boys career started first as a dancer, calling himself Little Billy – a play on his dwarfism – later becoming a rapper and forming the classic lineup of the group alongside rappers Scarface and Willie D.

The group became notorious for their occasionally ultra-violent “horrorcore” lyrics, though they also frequently wrote about social issues, from opposing the first Gulf war to deprivation and police brutality. They broke into the US mainstream in 1991 with their track Mind Playing Tricks on Me, and became hugely influential for creating a southern US flavor to gangsta rap.