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Busting Out With Busta Rhymes
And funny thing is, when he performed that song with Tribe on the Arsenio Hall show, hip hop experts (at least they think they are) from Elektra Records thought the same thing, and signed Busta Rhymes to a solo record deal. Is that how Busta Rhymes got his start?
I am getting ahead of myself. Before solo Busta Rhymes records ever hit the stores and the charts, he was actually a member of a classic hip hop group called the Leaders of the New School. This group was made up of a bunch of his buddies and fellow rappers from the Long Island area where Trevor Smith (yes, that's Busta Rhymes' real name) grew up. The Leaders of the New School released two records, "TIME" in 1993 and "A Future Without a Past" in 1991.
The Coming
But it was when the Leaders of the New School broke up, and Busta Rhymes got off on his solo career, that his heavy baritone voice really started making Busta Rhymes some loot. The first Busta Rhymes album was "The Coming" in 1996, and it is to date still one of the best rap albums ever put out in the 1990s.
Listen to Busta Rhymes and the rest of the Flipmode Squad, and you hear some of the most innovative deliveries that your ears will ever capture, as well as some of the funniest, nastiest, most creative lyrics as well. The record produced such Busta Rhymes song masterpieces as "Woo Hah" and ended up going platinum.
The second Busta Rhymes record was "When Disaster Strikes," with such Busta Rhymes songs as "Dangerous" and "Turn It Up." Again, the trend was set: top flight Busta Rhymes lyrics, mixed with dirty East Coast beats, topped off with some of the freakiest videos this side of MTV. His next solo album "Extinction Level Event" where Busta Rhymes even outdid himself with some of his rhyming.
Coming Over and Over
Busta Rhymes left Elektra on a bad note, with a disappointment of an album called "Full Clip" in 2000. But he signed with J Records and kept up steady work. Several Busta Rhymes albums would follow, such as "Genesis" and "It Ain't Safe No More."
Busta Rhymes around this time started to change a bit before our eyes. In 2005, he cut off his signature dreadlocks. And if you look at Busta Rhymes these days, he has definitely beefed up a bit since his teenage days in the video for Tribe's Scenario. And he seemed to pick up more of an edge in real life, finding his way into court on more than one occasion for weapons possession and assault.
But through it all, Busta Rhymes is still one of the top names in the business. Do you know when Busta Rhymes had his first number one album? Not until just 2006, with "Big Bang, which sold more than 200,000 copies in the first week alone. Perhaps it was because Dr. Dre had a hand in the production. Perhaps it's because Nas and Raekwon made guest appearances. But you got to figure it's mostly because of that distinctive Busta Rhymes sound.
