Deep Album Cuts Vol. 209: Busta Rhymes
Busta Rhymes is releasing his 10th album, Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath Of God, this Friday, and there's a lot of positive buzz from the people that have heard it, I'm looking forward to it. He's one of the best rappers of all time, he's in my top 10 and should probably be in more people's top 10 than he is, gotta pay respect to how he's remained relevant for almost 30 years now.
2. Everybody Rise
3. Rhymes Galore
4. Everything Remains Raw
5. What The Fuck You Want!!
6. The Heist (featuring Raekwon, Ghostface Killah and Roc Marciano)
7. Wheel Of Fortune
8. Iz They Wildin Wit Us & Gettin Rowdy Wit Us? (featuring Mystikal)
9. Get Down
10. Things We Be Doin' For Money, Part 1
11. Things We Be Doin' For Money, Part 2 (featuring Rampage, Anthony Hamilton and The Chosen Generation)
12. Hot Shit Makin' Ya Bounce
13. Why We Die (featuring DMX and Jay-Z)
14. Still Shining
15. Keep It Movin' (featuring Leaders of the New School)
16. What Up
17. Genesis
18. So Hardcore
19. It Ain't Safe No More (featuring Meka)
20. Show Me What You Got
21. Make It Hurt
22. You Can't Hold The Torch (featuring Q-Tip and Chauncey Black)
Tracks 4, 14 and 15 from The Coming (1996)
Tracks 3, 10, 11 and 18 from When Disaster Strikes... (1997)
Tracks 2, 5, 8 and 12 from E.L.E. (Extinction Level Event): The Final World Front (1998)
Tracks 1, 6, 13 and 20 from Anarchy (2000)
Tracks 17 and 21 from Genesis (2001)
Tracks 16 and 19 from It Ain't Safe No More... (2002)
Tracks 9 and 22 from The Big Bang (2006)
Track 7 from Back On My B.S. (2009)
Technically, Busta released an album, Year Of The Dragon, in 2012, but it came out on Google Play and isn't available on most streaming services today, so that's a real 'if a tree falls in the forest' kind of thing. That early run of albums he had, with the apocalyptic themes of the new millennium coming, from "there's only 5 years left!" on The Coming to "there's only one year left!" on E.L.E., is still really thrilling to listen to. And in a weird way I guess he realized that now that shit really does feel like a whole entire world collapse now in 2020, it's kind of a good time to bring that vibe back with a sequel to E.L.E., which has always been my favorite album of his. "Everybody Rise" is kind of his classic track that still gets DJ burn even though it was never a charting single. Revisiting his catalog, one album that has aged surprisingly well is Anarchy, which was pretty much the only one of Busta's '90s/2000s albums that didn't have a big hit single everybody remembers now.
Busta Rhymes came up in the Native Tongues orbit and kept those roots over the years as he became a solo star with a clubbier sound and cartoonishly over-the-top videos. And that made him into a really unique figure who can do party songs, conscious songs, and street songs without ever feeling out of his element, and a guy who can hang with the grimiest New York rappers and pop stars and southern rappers and always kills a guest verse. When you think of NYC rap exploding in the second half of the '90s, you tend to think of Jay-Z and DMX and Nas and the Bad Boy roster, but Busta was always right there, maybe getting underestimated a bit because what an animated character he was by comparison. But he's really an east coast icon, and his influence shouldn't be played down -- plus one of his Flipmode Squad proteges, Roc Marciano, has emerged as one of the most acclaimed rappers of the last decade. So I really tried to show Busta's range here, including more narrative-driven songs like "Things We Be Doin' For Money," which featured Anthony Hamilton 5 or 6 years before he became a solo star.
One thing about Busta Rhymes albums that you'd never get from his singles is his extensive collaborative relationship with J Dilla, who produced a dozen songs across 6 of Busta's first 7 albums. They first linked up when Dilla and Q-Tip were producing together as The Ummah, and Busta and Dilla kept on doing great work together for years. So the last 9 songs on this playlist are all produced by Dilla, from track 14 onward. I particularly like "Show Me What You Got," which samples Stereolab's "Come And Play In The Milky Night." There's "The Ugliest," an outtake from The Coming that features Notorious B.I.G. rapping over a Dilla beat, something I didn't know existed until recently. The story goes that it was left it off the album because Biggie took shots at 2Pac and Busta didn't want to get pulled into the beef, and Puffy tried to buy the beat but Busta wouldn't sell the song.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, October 28, 2020 at 10:41 AM.
You can skip to the end and leave a response.
Post a Comment