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| Linkin Park Collab With Busta Rhymes... |
| Thursday 29 May 2008 |
 Two years ago almost to the day, Swizz Beatz crowned Busta Rhymes King of New York onstage at Hot 97's Summer Jam in the single least defensible display of rap bravura I've ever witnessed. Busta was in that show's de facto headliner spot (second-to-last, since everyone leaves when the last act is on), and he built up to his big coronation by trotting out every NY rap legend he had in his rolodex for one song each: Wu-Tang, Rakim, Slick Rick, Big Daddy Kane, Q-Tip.
But not even the goodwill he earned with those twenty minutes of euphoric stadium-rap nostalgia could make the coronation any less ridiculous. Busta Rhymes is not made of kingly material. At his creative and commercial peak, he was basically a really funny guy who wasn't afraid to dress in stupid costumes in his videos and who could rap really fast. He was impossible to hate, but nobody expected him to personify an entire city's hopes and dreams, either. The Big Bang, the album he was pushing at that show, was meant to change all that.
It didn't. It failed. That album, Busta's first for Dr. Dre's Aftermath label, played host to a series of garbage-ass singles (one of which, the godforsaken "Touch It" remix, stayed in heavy radio rotation way, way past its sell-by date). And right around the time it was failing utterly to turn Busta into a Serious Rap Star, Busta himself worked hard to become one of rap's most loathsome figures. He got himself arrested for some of the dumbest, least sympathetic reasons ever (beating up a teenager who'd spit on his car, beating up a driver who'd demanded the wages he was owed), he refused to talk to police after an assistant was killed on his video shoot, and he gave nonsensical vein-popping interviews to anyone who would listen.
For a minute there, it looked like Busta Rhymes might become rap's first roid-related heart-attack fatality. Now, all of a sudden, he's back, and he might even be that really funny fast-rapping guy he once was.
Listen to the track HERE.
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posted by Anonymous @ 09:28  |
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