Do you really realize how much Busta Rhymes has contributed to this thing we call Hip Hop? Sure, you remember the crazy, Hype Williamsdirected, bubble-eyed lens videos with the loud colors. Yeah, he made it cool to hop on everybody and anybody’s record. True, he’s given some of the best concerts your eyes will ever see. But do you actually appreciate his efforts? Do you name him in your “Top 5: Dead or Alive?” Do you own all of his albums? Do you ever hear him actually spitting a wack verse? Odds are that you answered “no” to at least two of those questions. It’s okay, Busta forgives you. Actually, he’s not tripping at all. With his new album Back On My Bullshit, Busta is going to keep doing the same thing he’s done for the last 20-plus years, whether you notice it or not. The name of the album is Back On My Bullshit. Is there an angle that you were trying to convey with that album title? I really wasn’t trying to convey anything other than the self-explanatory definition of the 74 // OZONE MAG
title itself. I just felt like I’ve been in situations where I’ve switched from label to label. I started out with Elektra, and now I’m with Universal Motown. Through my experiences, I always feel like you’re a part of teams. We’re like basketball players. When you play for different teams, sometimes you’re asked to do things that you don’t feel are one hundred percent you or allow you to feel one hundred percent comfortable in your own skin. Making my rounds, I felt like... Naw, it ain’t even a feeling, it’s a fact. My greatest success was garnished when I was working under the reign of Sylvia Rhone. She was the CEO of Elektra Records at the time when I was putting out “Woo Hah” and “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See”, “Dangerous” and that record I did with Janet “What’s It Gonna Be”, so I garnished my greatest success with her. She always made me feel comfortable. She trusted that as long as she allowed me to sit behind the wheel of controlling my own destiny, I was gonna deliver at the fullest of my capability. Now I’m at Universal Motown, and she’s the CEO over here. What you see happening right now with my records in the street and the momentum we’ve got, compared to the records and the momentum we had in my last situation, there’s a significant difference. The minute I came over here, I put out my first record and the shit made the most noise in the streets with “Arab Money” off the top. There wasn’t no complication in fig-
uring out how to market or campaign the Busta Rhymes brand or Busta Rhymes as an artist or his type of music. She already understands how to do that from our experience from the Elektra days over ten years ago. So number one, I’m back home with Sylvia Rhone. I’m back to being able to do what I’m used to doing, and that’s giving people the Busta Rhymes that they’ve known to grow and love. In addition to that, the album just feels and sounds like vintage Busta Rhymes in a new way. So the most appropriate title was Back On My Bullshit, being that I am, literally, back on my bullshit. Over the last couple years, what dots have not been connected? The dots that I felt weren’t being connected was, number one, the synergy amongst us as people. When we work with a team, there’s gotta be a certain energy, a certain vibe, and a certain feelgood component that allows us all to run around with the excitement necessary to campaign the product the right way. I felt like that wasn’t really there the way it needed to be. Number two, the understanding of what Busta Rhymes is and how Busta Rhymes operates. I don’t think that understanding was ever established in the right way either. We can only accomplish but so much with that not being at its fullest or at least at a level that was substantial enough for us to feel like we really knew how to rock with each other to be on