Busta Rhymes Gets the Heat Off His Chest

For a very long time now people have been looking for the next big thing in hip hop. Unfortunately, it hasn’t come along. Thankfully our veterans such as Busta Rhymes, Nas and Jay Z have all recently recorded or are in the recording process to maintain the lyrical side of the game as well as the heat off the tracks. You will notice the vibe of Busta and the mentality that he had when being interviewed.

This interview was done by Eddie House and Nell for Felon Magazine while Busta was putting the finishing touches on his album. For more on Eddie House, Felon Magazine and House management, please see the entertainment section.

FELON: Your new album coming out is entitled The Big Bang. Where did the title come from, and what’s that whole theory about?

BUSTA: It ain’t no theory, it’s just the obvious. I’m a put an album out that’s gonna bang the shit out the street real big. I worked in the studio wit Dre for three years, naw mean? Me and Dre coming together - that’s a big bang situation. I didn’t wanna have no major beat science to the shit, ‘cause I didn’t feel that was necessary, I feel like the science needed to be in the record, but for the most part I just wanted to make the most impactful project that I ever made. This my seventh solo album, they say seven is the lucky number, I understand why it’s the lucky number ‘cause in the Five Percent philosophy, seven represent God, and I always looked at myself as that, not only because that was what I grew up living by as far as my cultural significance, but I just think it beneath me to try to be the king of something. Gods create kings, so I just felt like I wanted my album to feel godly, man, especially if I’m competing wit niggas who claim their Kings. I gotta Super-Caesar-Smash all of that, I’m coming wit the God album.

FELON: No doubt. So what are your expectations for this album coming out? You said this is your seventh album, and you been gone for three years, so do you have any expectations of yourself?

BUSTA: Well, my [first] expectation is to supersede everything that I’ve done wit my own career and success up to this point. Number two, my other expectation is to supersede everything else going on wit everybody else wit this project. Number three, I intended on just showing mu’fuckers everything that made Busta Rhymes the mu’fucker that you grew to know and love all these years, ‘cause I don’t think people really ever got to really understand the Busta Rhymes story. They got a lot of high energy, a lot of club bangers, a lot of wild out records, but I don’t think niggas really ever fully got an understanding on why is Busta Rhymes like that. Who, what, when, where did homie go through this shit? And who did he go through it with, to inspire the things that he do. Like where did he get his shit from, why is that nigga the way he is, so this album is all of that.

FELON: Now wit this new album, rumor has it that you did a hundred and twenty tracks. How many tracks did you actually record?

BUSTA: I’m actually up to a hundred and sixty-six records right now.

FELON: Wow, so between narrowing it down - what process did ya’ll take to do that?

BUSTA: Well, we ain’t complete the narrowing down stage, but we got it down to like the twenty-five records we love. Of course I ain’t putting twenty-five records on my album so we still gotta narrow it down a lot more, but that process came in different periods. Like when I first started the album, what was the shit to us then, was the shit for that time if it was coming out then. As time went on, we would make shit to accommodate with whatever the time was dealing wit from our point of view, like what we felt the game needed at that time was the shit we was making, so it’s like, if it sat around too long according to our discretion or our judgment, it became a process of eliminating that was happening on its own. Like it really wasn’t a thing where we had a difficult time saying “Naw we can’t get rid of this” or “we can’t get rid of that,” we fighting over what songs need to stay because we loved all of the shit. Like we loved all of the shit but there’s an understanding that goes into not just loving the records for you but loving the records for what’s necessary for the game, and what’s necessary for the market, and what’s necessary for you at the same time. I know what I’m trying to do wit my album, I’m not just trying to give niggas records that I love, in which most of my album’s that’s what I’ve always done, but this is the first album that I’m giving niggas records that I know their gonna love, because I made every record wit the people in mind, and I made every record for me including the people in mind, because I just felt like I needed to give the people some shit that I know they probably always wanted to get, and never did, and the only thing I didn’t give mu’fuckers yet was my real story. And I didn’t do it because I never felt that was in the label situation that knew how to nourish them type of records. You don’t see niggas on J Records that can put out record about putting your wife in the truck throwing the car in the water, killing a bitch cause you mad at her for bugging out on you because you a crazed fan over the artists you trying get wit and can’t. It wont work in no other label structure, that’s real personal shit. That ain’t no record made for no club, that ain’t no record made for the typical top forty radio formats, ain’t no cross-over record, it ain’t none of that. That’s a real critically acclaimed, ground breaking barrier type of jump-off. And the shit get the most critically acclaimed acknowledgement because you pushing the envelope so stupidly on a creative level that it forces niggas hand on acknowledging it as greatness as opposed to craziness. And that’s the shit that I always wanted to do, be a motherfucking, real, full-packaged artist that’s allowed to do what they know how to do best, and that’s be a dope fucking artist. A lot of these labels force niggas to do records that make their job easier to get it spun on the radio or makes their job easier getting it sold on retail because that’s all they know how to sell and promote. I ain’t never thought that was the way the game was supposed to work, like you ain’t never supposed to be in these labels working for these niggas that’s stacked - they gotta go out and provide a service to you, they supposed to work for you. Regardless what it is, as long as it ain’t trash, I ain’t asking you to sell a trash record, I’m asking you to sell a dope record that’s me, not a record that you need it to be. So my being at Aftermath was purely because they’re the number one label in the game, number one, but they’re the number label in the game because they did the shit that every artists’ dream was, and that was to do you. So that’s what this album is man, and I just feel like that was what was necessary of me this time around.

Stay tuned for Part II 10/13/2006.