We Can't Be Stopped is released

Why it matters

We Can't Be Stopped came out July 9, 1991, on Rap-A-Lot. It is the Geto Boys' third studio album and the one with the cover photograph everybody remembers. The photograph is Bushwick Bill, Willie D, and Scarface in a Houston hospital, the morning after Bushwick Bill had been shot in the right eye in an argument with his girlfriend. Bushwick is in a hospital gown, looking directly into the camera, his right eye gone. Willie D is wheeling the gurney. Scarface is standing beside it. The story behind the photo is: the Geto Boys' label, Rap-A-Lot, sent a photographer to the hospital while Bushwick was still being treated, and the photo session happened that morning. The result is one of the most viscerally specific album covers in rap history. The album itself has "Mind Playing Tricks on Me" on it, which is the song that put the Geto Boys, Scarface specifically, and Southern rap broadly on the national map. We Can't Be Stopped went platinum. The cover is part of the reason you have heard of the album. The song is the other part. You should hear both.