Geto Boys Hope Hard-Core Rap Stirs Peace

Considered in the most forgiving light possible, the hard-core rap group the Geto Boys are pathologists who take cuttings from society’s diseased body and hold them up to a microscope for our inspection.

Remove the benefit of the doubt--as Geffen Records did in 1990, when it refused to distribute a Geto Boys album it found to glamorize “violence, racism and misogyny”--and the group is part of that pathology.

Speaking recently from his home in Houston, Geto Boys leader Bushwick Bill vigorously defended the group as unyielding commentators, as opposed to pandering exploiters.

He maintains there is another side to the Geto Boys’ music that gets overlooked amid the controversy, a side he says will come to the fore when the band makes its Los Angeles area debut on Saturday at “Jam for Peace.” The daylong benefit at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre features more than 30 rap and R&B; acts playing brief sets to raise money for grass-roots charities and community groups that serve neighborhoods torn by last year’s rioting.

“This is a benefit for peace, so why would we be talking about violence? Unless it was how to stop violence, or decrease the violence and increase the peace,” Bushwick Bill said. To that end, the Geto Boys will perform their latest single, “Six Feet Deep,” a dirge that sorrows over the toll taken by gang shootings.

If you take the Geto Boys’ songs as legitimate commentary rather than exploitation, and find them persuasive, it’s hard to find any of the hope for positive change that usually motivates benefit concerts.

But Bushwick Bill says he does entertain hope. As rappers, he and his partners may sound nasty and brutish; but as a speechmaker, Bushwick can sound downright uplifting.

“You can’t get around it. Life is pain, and pain is everywhere,” he said. “You can’t candy-coat an unsweetened world. But you can get together and make it a better place to live.”

“Jam for Peace” is being organized by KACE-FM (103.9), an Inglewood radio station whose format features a mixture of hip-hop and R&B; mirrored in the event’s roster. The bill includes such veterans as Ice-T, Miki Howard and Troop, and successful newcomers such as H-Town, Portrait, Shai and Duice. Some previously advertised heavy-hitters will not appear, including Arrested Development, LL Cool J, Levert, Johnny Gill, Wreckx-N-Effect, Snow and House of Pain.

“Everybody’s wondering what can be done after the riots,” said John Rockweiler, general manager of the station. “There’s a lot more rhetoric going around than things happening, and we thought we would do something more action-oriented than rhetoric-oriented.”

The show is taking place in Orange County, Tony Fields, the station’s programming director said, because they wanted an outdoor facility. Organizers also considered L.A. sites including the Hollywood Bowl and the Coliseum, but Irvine Meadows came through with the best deal, he said.

Because of the logistics of presenting more than 30 acts in nine hours, all of the R&B; performers on the bill will sing to taped backing. The acts are donating their performances, but the benefit has some hefty overhead costs. Whatever is left will go to the 19 community groups chosen as beneficiaries by Isidra-Lynn Person, the station’s public affairs director.

“Whatever we raise we will evenly distribute,” Person said. “We would love to give them at least $2,000 each. Some of these groups don’t have fax machines or voice mail. Little things like that can make you be more effective.”