Showtime has announced the Cypress Hill: Insane in The Brain and Bushwick Bill: Geto Boy documentaries will be premiering this April on the television network as part of their joint venture with Mass Appeal for the network’s “Hip-Hop 50” series.
The Cypress Hill: Insane in The Brain documentary will explore the career and influence of the iconic hip-hop group and Bushwick Bill: Geto Boy will detail the life of the late Geto Boys member Bushwick Bill and his fight against censorship.
In 1991, Cypress Hill, by using jazz, R&B, psychedelic rock, and metal samples, solidified themselves as a pioneering hip-hop group when they released their self-titled debut album. The project dropped a year before Dr. Dre came out with The Chronic, whereas Cypress Hill had crafted stoner anthems like “Light Another” and “Stoned Is the Way of the Walk”. While other hip-hop groups had yet to openly embrace smoking marijuana, Cypress Hill was making it culturally cool to do so already.
Bushwick Bill, along with Scarface and Willie D – known to the world as The Geto Boys – put Houston, Texas on the map by pioneering their nightmarish imagery, physical abuse, and psychological horror in their songs including their opus “Mind Playing Tricks On Me”. Releasing their debut album, 1989’s Grip It! On That Other Level, on Rap-A-lot Records, the trio would go on to become multi-platinum pioneers. Sadly in 2019, the group lost pivotal group member Bushwick Bill to pancreatic cancer, effectively forcing the end of The Geto Boys as we know it.
Cypress Hill: Insane in The Brain will premiere on Showtime Wednesday, April 20 and Bushwick Bill: Geto Boy will premiere on Friday, April 29.
