Grip It! On That Other Level

Grip It! On That Other Level
Studio album by Geto Boys
Released	March 12, 1989
Recorded	1988–1989
Genre	Gangsta rap, southern hip hop, horrorcore
Length	54:03
Label	Rap-A-Lot Records
Producer	DJ Ready Red, Doug King, James Smith, John Bido, Johnny C
Geto Boys chronology
Making Trouble (1988) Grip It! On That Other Level (1989) The Geto Boys (1990)
Alternative cover
Reissue album cover

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
The Source

Grip It! On That Other Level is the second studio album by the Houston hip hop group, Geto Boys (then known as Ghetto Boys), released on March 12, 1989 on Rap-A-Lot Records. Following the disappointing results of the group's first album, Rap-A-Lot CEO James Prince replaced two of the group members with Scarface (then known as Akshen) and Willie D, who joined original members Bushwick Bill and DJ Ready Red. Recording for the album began in 1988, and finished in early 1989. The majority of the album's tracks were produced by DJ Ready Red, and much of the album's lyrical content deals with violent and misogynistic topics, which would later be credited for pioneering the horrorcore hip hop subgenre.

Upon its 1989 release, Grip It! On That Other Level reached number 166 on the Billboard 200 chart, and number 19 on the Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums chart. The song "Do it Like a G.O." was the album's only single used for promotion. Grip It! was well received in the hip hop community, and was considered to be the group's breakout album, as it gave them national exposure and eventually sold 500,000 copies. A year after its release, super-producer Rick Rubin remixed 10 of its tracks for the 1990 remix album The Geto Boys. In 1998, The Source magazine included Grip It! On That Other Level on their 100 Best Albums list, and in 2002, they gave it the perfect five mic' rating.

In 1988, Rap-A-Lot Records founder James Prince decided to invest his full budget and attention towards the Ghetto Boys, as he saw them as the most promising music-act on his label. After the critical and commercial failure of the group's debut album Making Trouble, J. Prince felt that the Ghetto Boys needed to go in a different direction, and that their line-up needed to change. He opted to keep DJ Ready Red and their hype man Bushwick Bill, but dropped Sire Jukebox and Prince Johnny C, as he saw the latter two as copying several artists from New York City.