The Untold Story of Home Boys Only

My father and Uncle in Eazy E’s “Real Muthaphuckin G’s” music video.

“Before there was NWA, there was HBO.”

Anybody whose a fan of West Coast Hip Hop knows the story of NWA, but the story of HBO/Home Boys Only, the very first musical group signed to Eazy E’s Ruthless Records has been shrouded in mystery. I’d like to share it for the first time ever in Honor of Black History Month.
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The members of HBO were my father George Stanley Jr. nicknamed “G” and my uncle Lynwood Stanley, nicknamed “L”, and one of their friends. They were originally from North Jersey but they spent much of their youth between there and New York City. The brothers relocated to Los Angeles, CA around 1985 as teens to pursue education and careers.

They quickly became popular in the urban music scene and began performing regularly at parties. HBO became so popular that Dr. Dre asked them to perform with his first musical group, the World Class Wrecking Cru. Eventually they were introduced to Ice Cube, Easy E, the DOC and other members of what would become Niggaz With Attitude.

In March of 1986 Eazy E founded Ruthless Records. They decided to record a song and Ice Cube wrote the lyrics to Boys N The Hood. Unfortunately the members of HBO couldn’t understand the West Coast context of the lyrics because they were from the East. They chose not to do the song for originality’s sake. Instead Eazy E recorded the song which was released in 1987.

Ice Cube has gone on record several times to say that HBO was NWA’s original opening act.

This pivotal moment in history was reenacted in the 2015 movie “Straight Outta Compton”. HBO’s musical career was pushed to the backburner by their personal lives until the early ’90s. During this time the members of the group invested more of their time in an interstate drug business, had children, and were involved in drama and disputes with their friends, lovers and mothers of their children.

Home Boys Only depicted in the “Straight Outta Compton” movie.

In 1991 Dr. Dre left Ruthless to found his own label, Aftermath, and record “The Chronic”. George and Lynwood’s mother was murdered the year afterwards in 1992. Also around this time my oldest sister was born and my brother suffered a drowning accident and was mentally paralyzed. When Dre heard about these events, he invited my father and uncle to Solar Records in the summer of 1992 to work on music for The Chronic.

Things went left when my Uncle Lynwood. and Suge Knight started arguing about using a phone that was forbidden for use by anyone other than Suge. Knight responded by ordering everyone out of the studio, pistol whipping my father and uncle, and shooting at them. Dr. Dre did nothing. After robbing and threatening them to keep quiet Knight had my father and uncle escorted out of the building and to their car.

Despite the threat, the brothers decided to tell the police, who had been waiting for an opportunity to arrest Knight. They police stormed the studio and arrested everybody. Nobody would give a testimony about what happened to the Stanley brothers. The only reason the police had proof of the crime was because the bullet Knight shot at my father and uncle was still lodged in the wall. The evidence sent Knight to jail and allowed my father and Uncle to sue him in criminal and civil court making them the first of a long line of victims to do so.

Article about the lawsuit against Suge Knight.

A year later in 1993 my father and uncle got back in touch with Easy E and they were cast in his last video “Real Muthaphuckin G’s. This was also the year I was born. Knight began paying my father and uncle under the table to gain their cooperation in both cases Unbeknownst to them Knight had established a quid pro quo relationship with then District Attorney Larry Longo to help him beat the case. Knight also agreed to sign Mr. Longo’s daughter Gina to Death Row Records as the labels first white female musician. It was also arranged for Longo’s son to be hired by the law firm that drew up the documents for the civil settlement. In exchange Mr. Longo allegedly urged my father and uncle to testify lightly against Knight which they did.

Article about the Los Angeles D.A.’s investigation into former District Attorney Larry Longo’s misconduct in the case against Suge Knight.

The case ended with my father and Uncle receiving a million daughter settlement and a recording deal with Death Row Records in 1994 and Knight receiving a controversial plea bargain in his criminal case. My father and uncle went to work on their album while Knight went to sign a jailed Tupac Shakur to the label. Shortly afterwards, Easy E passed away.

Slow progress was made on the Stanley brothers album. By the time it was finished, Death Row producers decided that the album’s sound was too old for the newer style of hip hop that had emerged and shelved the project. The Stanley Brothers and the other Death Row artists were struck a hard blow when leading artist Tupac Shakur was gunned down in September 1996. Suge Knight went to jail for violating his probation during a fight that happened just before the murder.

With Tupac dead and Suge in jail, all operations at Death Row suddenly ceased and the artists of Death Row were left without management or pay. For the next 3 years my father and uncle devoted their time to their drug operation and numerous other businesses that were funded by the settlement money. They threw extravagant parties with exotic women and animals, bought expensive clothes and cars, and blew the money fast. It seemed they were living the life. But it would all soon come crashing down.

In 1998, the brothers grandfather died, and their grandmother followed in 1999. In the year 2000, the oldest brother, George Jr.s oldest son passed away at 13 years old. He had lived in a special needs home for children for half of his life after surviving a childhood drowning with irreversible brain damage. By the time of his death, Federal Agents had become aware of the brothers illegal activities and placed them under surveillance. The morning of my brothers funeral, detectives sat outside my Uncle’s Englewood mansion and waited for us to leave. They pulled us over and arrested my father en route to his son’s funeral.

During the same year my Uncle Lynwood, who was the mastermind of the drug operation was paralyzed from the waist down in a drug related shooting and became confined to a wheelchair. The interstate drug operation began to crumble as everyone who was involved, including my father began to distance themselves from my powerless Uncle who like Knight, controlled many through fear. Unable to run his businesses or take care of himself, my Uncle began to lose everything he’d worked for.

He had just enough money and product to take up residence at a motel, where a longtime friend helped care for him and run his businesses. My Uncle Lynwood planned to rebuild his empire once he recovered, but he never got the chance. In 2001, about a year after he was shot he suffered a blood clot and passed away.

So there you have it. The members of HBO went on to lead very eventful lives and became the first men to literally make Suge Knight pay for being a bully. There is no affiliation between the Stanley Brothers and activist Larry Davis’s Home Boys Only Records. I’ve pieced together this history by talking to my father, other people who were present, watching documentaries and reading newspaper articles.

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