Busta Rhymes |
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Fri. December 06.2002 5:19 PM EST |
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Busta Rhymes: Run, Busta, RunThe hip-hop wild man and reggae lover talks about talking nasty, watching cartoons, and playing dodge ball with beats. by Bottomley & Jim Macnie |
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Busta Rhymes (VH1.com) |
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Although Busta Rhymes is one of hip-hops most recognizable faces, its easy to forget just how important he is as a rapper. With an instantly recognizable rasp and a flow thats second to none, the Brooklyn tongue twister is a hip-hop Hendrix - a
On his sixth album It Aint Safe No More, Busta (real name Trevor Smith) shelves the apocalyptic visions of his previous discs, When Disaster Strikes and Extinction Level Event. Safe is about partying like its 2999. Make It Clap is a booty call hidden in a schoolyard rhyme, and the bluster hits the red zone on floor-fillers like the Neptunes-assisted Call the Ambulance. The beats can be as barmy as Bustas hectic lyrics on this disc, but the veteran MC has a focus as well: this time he's feeling a solid love for the ladies. The naughty Taste It and and blatant I Know What You Want, are all about the wild thing. Ground is being broken on the album, too. The latter track finds Busta singing (!) with Mariah Carey. And still he gets no respect. When Busta came into the VH1 studios, it was fresh from bum-rushing a J. Lo edition of TRL to hand out copies of It Aint Safe No More. It's been 11 years since Rhymes' debut with Leaders of the New School, and during the interview he explained that the longevity was due to trusting his couldnt-give-a-whoo-ha! attitude. He also explained his formula for creating a classic Busta joint, and gave props to Missy Elliott, Slick Rick, and Heckle & Jeckle. Make sure you watch the clips to get the full effect of a guy who says he's a human cartoon. VH1: Youve been acclaimed as one of the great live rappers, and spent the summer touring with Moby and David Bowie. Is performing in the blood? Busta Rhymes: Touring was how we sold the albums when I started with Leaders of the New School. Wed get in front of people, make them feel the music, do the call and response stuff so they feel like the song is theirs, and make them want to buy the record after the concert. I appreciate the additional additives and preservatives that help sell a project, but Im sticking to what works best for me. I gotta sell the album live on stage and make people believe in the songs. VH1: People forget how important and fun live hip-hop can be. Rhymes: Its fun, but its definitely wear and tear. You stop at all of the greasy nasty-ass truck stops and you never get a proper rest. But every night you party like its the last night that youre ever going to have to party. You can run yourself into a rut, because the next day all of the partying from the day before takes its toll. Your head is swollen from migraine pain, and you still have to put in the same intense work! VH1: What was the last silly thing you asked for on your rider? Rhymes: We used to ask promoters to have ass backstage! Wed have some condoms and get some ass backstage. Break it out or we aint coming! Then the Internet came into effect. When the whole world can find out that you asked for 12 packs of condoms or an ounce of weed on your rider, it creates a whole other issue for you to deal with. VH1: Speaking of ass, the first single is rather blatant Make It Clap. When you meet a woman, what do you check out first? Rhymes: Im checking out her whole being - from the way shes groomed, to her face, clothes and shape. Im analyzing from head to toe. VH1: Get caught looking a lot? Rhymes: Yeah, but I aint got no problem with getting caught watching. I want you to see that Im looking. Look at me look at you. Im cool with that. VH1: This has been a good year for women like Khia, Trina and Missy Elliott getting dirty with their rhymes. Are women stepping up to the plate in that regard? Rhymes: Women have always been doing their thing on that level. Lil Kim was always talking her talk, too. Before that you had Millie Jackson. Its just good to see people not being scared! You should talk about whatever you want. A lot of the most proper-acting people are the most savage in the bedroom! People want to feel free to [talk about] that, and we aint been feeling so free since the Bush dude became president. Music is an escape route for a lot of people. [Watch Clip] VH1: Can you go too far doing a sex rhyme? Rhymes: Nah. Who is to determine whats too far and whats not? At the end of the day, I have to go to bed knowing I put my best foot forward from my spiritual and mental standpoint. I live by my standards, and those standards have been taking good care of my family for a couple of years. Im not fixing something that aint broke. Thats why I never had a problem putting on an outfit that just looked crazy. I know nobody else aint gonna wear it. I know you probably dont even like it! But its cool! Youre gonna notice me when I come in. Im gonna make a statement without opening my mouth, and when I leave, youre gonna remember that. Thats what I want - a long-lasting effect. VH1: When you were growing up, which hip-hop performers seemed like larger than life characters to you? Rhymes: LL Cool J and Run-D.M.C. were those dudes to me. They seemed to be a whole other species of man to me, with superhuman strength and all that! VH1: Youve always been considered something of a rap cartoon character, and the Make It Clap video quotes Road Runner. What cartoons did you watch when you were growing up? Rhymes: I was a cartoon freak. I watched Heckle & Jeckle, Tom & Jerry, Super Friends, Voltron, Transformers, Scooby-Doo, Magilla Gorilla, Woody Woodpecker, Bugs Bunny and all of them dudes. My craziest ideas come from cartoons. I approach music by taking that cartoon extreme and the real life extreme and finding somewhere in the middle. The animated element lures people in, but the real-life substance puts the nail in the coffin. That balance always works well for me. VH1: Were you the class clown? Rhymes: I definitely wasnt shy! I didnt have the hottest jokes, but I made my little minor attempts at being a class clown. After one or two experiences of what the result was - punishment from moms - it wasnt worth doing that class clown thing any more. My rhymes started to happen because I wanted attention in a way that I wasnt gonna get in trouble for. Instead, I was gonna get loved for it. VH1: Do you ever get into a mindset when being the Busta character is a drag? Like, I cant be Busta Rhymes today? Rhymes: You get those days. You need a serious battery endorsement to be Busta Rhymes every day! When Im with my kids, Busta Rhymes is put away in the storage bin somewhere. When Im dealing with the fans, Busta Rhymes comes back. My kids want to be around Busta Rhymes as long as it doesnt compromise the attention dad is supposed to give them. They basically want to see dad. VH1: The album is a great reminder of your dexterity as an MC. How many different voices do you have to draw on? Rhymes: It depends on what the music inspires. The music inspires the way I write, how I structure the song, the vocal tone and terminology that I use, the way I apply the metaphors. I go in the studio, put the beat on, sit there for about an hour and a half, and all the answers start to come. I play with it like a dodge ball game. You gotta play with the snare and kick drums like you had a thousand balls coming at you and you dont want none of them to hit you. Sometimes less could be more, or more could be less, or more is just the right way to approach this record, because less might not be enough! [When you listen to the track] two or three days later, if your vibe for the song is the same, you got a winner. If youre not feeling it the same way, you try to correct the song. If you cant capture that new feeling, you need to leave that song alone, because it aint working out. [Watch Clip] VH1: The album (closer Till Its Gone?) has a strong dancehall beat. Are you a big fan? Rhymes: Completely. Me and my younger brother were born in Brooklyn, but pretty much the whole family is from Jamaica - St. Catherines country, St. Anns country, Kingston, Spanish Town & thats my family! How I flow with the beats comes from reggaes rhythm, and the West Indian understanding of timing. VH1: Were there sound systems in your neighborhood? Rhymes: Definitely! We had King Jammys, King Addies, Stone Love, Road International Disco. A lot of sets used to do sound-clashes back in the day. Some of them still around and some of them aint, but they got so many new sounds nowadays its out of control. My favorite DJ was Major Worries. Tiger was out of control, too. Admiral Bailey, Lieutenant Stitchy and Professor Nuts were crazy! VH1: When you say crazy, what do you mean? Rhymes: Incredible! Thats what I mean! As lyricists and as performers, they would make your mouth fall through the concrete surface. They would shut the dancehall down - word! A lot of my inspiration came from that. I still attribute so much to them dudes from that time frame. When Shabba Ranks was priming, he had damn near 15, 12, 20, 17 songs on the street at the same time! He was on fire all the time! Beanie Man was tearing down the streets! Bounty Killer & Buju Banton & Sizzlas still on fire! [Watch Clip] VH1: What hip-hop albums have been touchstones for you? Rhymes: The Great Adventures of Slick Rick, Public Enemys It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and Notorious B.I.G.s Life After Death. Ive been playing those albums over and over again since theyve come out. Theres something about those albums that captured an emotion in me that nothing else ever has as far as music is concerned. They helped me learn how to appreciate albums and not just be gassed about one song off the album thats hot at the time. Theres certain songs that aint structured in a way that youre gonna like [immediately]. That aint always an accident. That means people are trying different things creatively and if you listen to it and decipher it, you might see the picture they were trying to paint. VH1: Any albums from this year that have done it for you? Rhymes: Missys Under Construction and Eminems The Eminem Show are my favorite albums right now. Its incredible to me how Missy did that album. Its like a great fundamental hip-hop schooling to the now generation. A lot of them hear stuff on that album that they think she just came up with, not knowing that its all things that have been around [for a long time]. If its important in school to understand the history of hundreds of years ago, its just as important to know the history of the culture that you live by. Were here because of the LLs, the Beasties, the Run-D.M.C.s, the Jam Master Jays. If it wasnt for Jam Master Jay, none of these new MCs would have sh*t! The million dollar deal structure wouldnt exist between artists and record companies if it wasnt for Run-D.M.C. selling two or three million albums. They were the first ones with rap music videos on MTV, the first rap dudes on the cover of Rolling Stone, the first dudes to do a bunch of everything! If you say, My old school is Biggie and Pac, that might be a reality and I respect it, but its unfortunate that you missed out on so much. [Watch Clip] VH1: Jam Master Jays passing really does feel like the end of an era. How does life go by so fast? It feels like I bought Slick Ricks Childrens Story just the other day. Rhymes: I remember a Slick Rick interview as clear and as vivid as the TRL appearance I made today. It was with Fab Five Freddy. They went into a shoe store and the shoes that they was looking at were like $500 and $600 shoes. Slick Rick dissed every producer on his album. He was like, I did all of this shit. These motherf*ckers came in there, they cleaned up sh*t and added their little sh*t here and there, but they was walking into the studio with my beats already laid down. He was dissing everybody. That was so incredibly crazy to me, 'cause I never saw that before. I thought, I love hip-hop, because you can do this like that and still be super successful! You aint gotta hold your tongue. VH1: True or false, people just love that kind of honesty. Rhymes: Thats what Im saying! You dont see people being so brutally honest. You got the politically correct face on all the time. That sh*t is a f*cked up way to be, man. Do you want to pass away knowing that you were a very unhappy and frustrated motherf*cker because you did not speak what you felt? [Watch Clip] For news, bio, songs, CDs, and more go to the Busta Rhymes Artist A -Z Pages. |
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