re: Bushwick Bill (thread cut short)

Time for my obligatory Bushwick Bill story:


In high school, my friends and I were big rap fans, and we loved the Geto Boys. The friend group for this particular adventure consisted of me (a white guy), another white guy, an asian kid, and two black guys.

My parents were out of town, and we found out that Geto Boys and MC Breed were playing a concert on a Tuesday night at the University of Pine Bluff, so we decided to go see them.

Now.. if you're unfamiliar with the lovely town of Pine Bluff... I'm not sure how to describe it. Its major "industry" is a paper mill, so it smells like shite. Its poverty rate is extremely high, and it is probably 90% African American. We arrive at the concert and get in line. We kind of knew things might be going amiss when a group of about 30 Folk in prison khakis and blue bandanas walked in, walked straight to the front of the line and into the auditorium without anyone blinking an eye. Intrepid "woke" adventurers that we were, though, we journeyed ever onward.

We took our seats and eagerly awaited the concert's start. Unfortunately, we were to wait a long time... and during that long wait we came to realize that our group of 2 whites, 1 asian, and 2 black dudes held the only two whites and an asian in the entire auditorium. Undeterred and feeling that, contrary to MC Breed's facmous song, there might be a future in our fronting, we continued to wait.

Now.. if you've ever been to a rap show, especially a rap who in the early 90s in Pine Bluff, you wouuld know that fights occasionally break out. The chance of a fight breaking out increases proportionate to the length of time the audience has to wait for the show to start. So yeah, fights started breaking out.

Being the testosterone-filled youths we were, we eagerly yelled encouragement to the brawlers. At some point, I paused in my excited yellings to realize I was a white guy loudly cheering on the fighting of two black guys... judging from the looks of the people around me, they were also having similar realizations.

The fight ceased, but my friends and I started feeling slightly unwelcome as we continued to wait. The point of no return came when one of my friends went to the bathroom (alone) and had a knife pressed against his ribs and had to hand over his wallet. At that point, we decided that Bushwick Bill be damned, we were going to have to leave... so we made our way to the exit.

AS we were walking back our cars, we saw a large tour bus pull up behind the building. My Asian friend decided that it must belong to the Geto Boys, and he was determined to meet the Geto Boys this night... so he convinced us to meander back toward the bus.

So later in life, I would meet people on Phish tour who would swear that they'd get in line to a show without a ticket, close their eyes, and just go along with the crowd and next thing they know, they're inside the show for free.

Whatever time warp magic occurs on Phish tour, we duplicated to get onto the Geto Boys tour bus that night, because before I knew it.. we were on the bus hanging out with Bill and Scarface and a large number of scantily clad, busty women.

I wish I could say that we partied all night with them or that they heard our sob stories of being held up at knifepoint and nearly beat up... but I can't. Basically we talked to them for about 3 minutes, shook hands with Bill, and then they escorted us off the bus.

And then.. we drove back home to Conway, Arkansas but with a hell of a story to tell all of our friends at school the next morning.