Willie D of the Geto Boys talks gangsta rap legacy

It has been a full quarter-century since the Geto Boys were public enemy No. 1 for those crusading against objectionable lyrics in hip-hop music.

Tales of gratuitous violence and venomous misogyny were so vivid on the Geto Boys' self-titled album — especially the song "Mind of a Lunatic" — that Def American Records was compelled to find new distributors and marketing because of public pressure.

But just a year later, in the summer of 1991, the Geto Boys were ubiquitous for another reason. Their song "Mind Playing Tricks on Me" brilliantly turned the tables on the violent braggadocio so prevalent in the then-thriving "gangsta rap" genre. This time the vivid tale inhabited the paranoia, guilt and disorienting fear of someone who feels stalked and destined to be on the other side of the gun barrel.

It has been a decade since the three principal members of the Geto Boys — Scarface, Willie D and Bushwick Bill — recorded an album together. And aside from a few scattered dates in 2013, it had been nearly that long since the trio went on tour.

That changes this month, as the group has taken to the road — playing First Avenue on June 17 — while negotiating the terms of an upcoming album.

Time has been kind to the Geto Boys' legacy. They are now regarded as one of the founders of "Southern rap," their blend of extreme hedonism and blunt social commentary influencing artists beyond their native Houston.

And at a time when police misconduct and income inequality dominate the headlines, trenchant Geto Boys songs such as "Crooked Officer," "6 Feet Deep" and "I Ain't With Being Broke" carry a weight beyond nostalgia.

"It's time," Willie "D" Dennis said simply when asked what prompted the Geto Boys' reunion. "Normally we talk for a couple of years about doing an album before the talk gets more serious. This time it's been 10 years."

Even so, there won't be any new material showcased on the tour (unless you count "Hoodiez," a song that Willie D and Scarface co-wrote three years ago to protest the killing of Trayvon Martin). Willie says he prefers to have the recording contract finalized before he heads back into the studio. He has no doubt the rhymes will flow once he and Scarface (real name: Brad Jordan) get down to business.

"The vibe between me and Brad, we don't worry about how much time has passed," Willie D said. "My style is more rugged and brash, and his softer and smooth. We're both socially conscious, and so we complement each other well. There's that competition; I know he's going to come in with hot verses and so I have to be ready to do the same."

The same is true onstage, where the duo has the diminutive Jamaican Bushwick Bill as the third voice and comic foil, a role similar to what Flava Flav served in Public Enemy. "We play what we think the audience wants to hear more than what we want to play," Willie D said.

But when it comes to composing, the opposite is true. "We don't write hits, we write classics. You can't write with the pressure of trying to make it a hit. You have to write what you feel. If the audience feels it, too, that's when it becomes a classic."

He cites "The World Is a Ghetto," the Geto Boys' hip-hop interpolation of the hit song by War, as a concoction he knew would fit that "classic" status even before it was finished. "We sat on that concept for about five years. When we did it, we wanted to show that poor people around the world are facing the same issues. Back then, people were talking about Rwanda and how terrible it was. Well, it was terrible in places in this country, too."

That class consciousness bleeds through most of the group's material, which makes frequent reference to Houston's impoverished Fifth Ward. It inevitably creeps into Willie D's explanation of how songs such as "Mind of a Lunatic" and "Mind Playing Tricks on Me" flow naturally from the same mind.

"The Goody Two Shoes like to pretend there is nothing wrong. … People say, 'I would never do that.' Let me tell you, circumstances will tell you what you will do and won't do," he said. "When life is beautiful, it is easy to say 'never.' And if you've struggled for a short period, it is easy to get on your high horse and say you should overcome.

"But you go through a good length of time that way, with your car repossessed and your mortgage foreclosed and your kid hungry and your child support overdue so your woman is trying to lock you up, when that happens, there is no moral compass."