It's tempting to say that's exactly how Busta Rhymes' music works, too. His recent release Extinction Level Event (Elektra) is certainly shallow, yet enjoyable, and it consistently frames potentially divisive topics (like millennial terror and unchecked materialism) in Hollywood-inspired contexts where taking a stand would only spoil the party. Then again, a pop star isn't supposed to stand for anything, and maybe even cannot, by definition, be reasonably expected to be anything besides popular. Rockers claim this right for themselves all the time. But they didn't 30 years ago, when rock was supposed to matter--and that's pretty much the stage hiphop is at right now.
And Busta does have some fervently held, radical beliefs. I tried my best to get him to reveal them during this interview, but could only barely stand up--I must confess--to his constant and authoritative demands for consensus (every rapper asks, over and over, if interviewers "Know what I'm saying?"; Busta is the first one I've spoken to who expects, and waits for, an affirmative reply). Still, our conversation went beyond campaign boilerplate to touch upon Busta's unstated agenda. Is he a dissident working within the system, or just another puppet of the fickle majority? See if you can read between the lines. As rap becomes the music of the establishment, it's only going to get more difficult to know what its codes really mean. If you don't figure him out during this Busta Rhymes tour, you'll find yourself way behind the curve when his whistle-stop, get-out-the-vote campaign circus rolls through town.
* * *
Adam Heimlich: So, I saw your press conference with your new shoes.
Busta Rhymes: Aight, cool, man. I'm just trying to make it happen. I'm trying to blast off--in every way I possibly can.
I liked when you told everyone that "bushi" is short for bourgeois. Has there been a change in the hiphop mindset, that you can call your shoes that?
It's just an urban term, for bourgeois.
But isn't it meant negatively?
Excuse me?
Doesn't "bushi" usually carry a negative connotation?
Yeah. I usually like to flip the mode of things. That why we call our squad Flipmode. But "bushi" in a negative sense usually means that somebody is getting high and mighty or extra fancy, y'know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Well, it's strange that it's a bad thing, but we all try to make ourselves get fancy and fly, and feel good and high and mighty about our damn selves from time to time. I think it's all in how you use it, and how you represent it, that makes it a negative thing or a positive thing. The way I'm representing it, the way I'm presenting what I'm about and what I'm doing, is just trying to bring the people exactly what they all are, to a degree. And how they like to feel and how they like to look is--bushi.
(Adam laughs)
Word up. And it's--just as far as making yourself able to feel and look good, regardless of the attire, because we can feel and look good hanging on the street corner. That's a whole 'nother extreme from a high, extravagant bourgeois event. But at the same time, you can still be real sharp, and yet, everyday, and hang out and feel real good about it at the same time, not having to be in those kind of settings because we all don't feel that we have to be at a bourgeois event to feel bourgeois.
That seems to be a positive attitude. But I was under the impression that you saw a millennial shitstorm coming, and that you thought things were going to go real bad in the near future.
(Busta laughs uproariously)
Did I read that wrong?
I don't think it's that extreme. I just think anything is possible, good and bad. Every thought is a potential reality--some of the negative things that are thought about and are inquired about--'cause we really don't have the answer on all the truths that are going on in our society. To bring about the results of shit, you kinda gotta prepare for the worst-case scenario, just in case. It's not about saying there's gonna be a major shift in the new millennium, but just in case, I wanna have my hand in a lot of things so if one shit shuts down, the other thing might still be working.
Do you really think it's gonna happen?
Everything happens at major turning points in time. The new millennium isn't just a focus because it's the year 2000. I think it's a major turning point in time.
You don't think it's an arbitrary counting thing?
It's really a major point. The year 2000 marks the actual, final putting in place of the things that are going to be identified as the historical turning points in time.
You mean it's going to be like a frozen moment, and people will forever after look back at it and say, "That's how things were in the year 2000"?
I don't know about a frozen moment. I think it's going to be a turning point in time. The old millennium will end, right before our very eyes. There's things that come with shit ending completely. And things that come with new things beginning, completely, as well. That's pretty much all it is to me. I don't really have any specifics. I just look for the good and the bad in the change. Some of the bad that we inquire about can be very extreme. I'm trying to prepare for some of the worst things, and work myself down to the more miscellaneous things that aren't so stressful as far as the change is concerned.
Like what?
Less stressful things like the little arguments or beefs that you have with people. That's little trivial shit that I don't worry about preparing for, as far as the worst-case scenarios and feeling threatened by those situations where things affect my livelihood and my well-being. I'm more focused on the things that are going to affect my well-being and the way I'm living, my family and things that I care about--that's all it is.
Let's talk about hiphop. No one really predicted it would change as it did during the time you've been a rap star--since the late '80s--going from being an outsider culture to becoming the mainstream, pop music. Is that how you've seen your career, as becoming more mainstream?
Not just my career--the whole shit! The whole hiphop demographic, the whole culture has become a mainstream thing. It's not just the music that's become more successful--the opportunities for hiphop have grown as well. It ain't just that the records are selling more; you're now seeing the culture of hiphop venture into things that would've never considered fucking with hiphop initially.
High fashion, for one.
The fashion, and endorsements from all over the place--soda companies, car companies; everything is so hiphop-oriented now that it's undeniable that this is the most dominant shit going on as far as entertainment.
It makes me wonder if it's the same culture when it's so adaptable like that. Do you think that even when hiphop is in a soda commercial, it brings a different value system--a hiphop value system--to the mainstream? Or is it just the mainstream culture with new sneakers on?
I think there's a greater value now.
What's different?
The difference is that now you can take care of your family through something that you respect and love doing. As opposed to loving and respecting some shit that you can't live from, and that other people are living from and bloodsucking you when you're the generating source of whatever's coming in. So the greater value is that artists are now starting to establish corporate positions, and are starting to establish more control. I think that really the reason why hiphop is succeeding so much is that the muthafuckas who are the driving forces of hiphop are dictating more, how it works, corporately. Joint ventures! Label deals! Production deals!
How are they running the music business differently? Is it just about understanding the music better?
Yeah, we understand the music better! We understand how to present it better, and make people believers in the music better.
How does that play out? Give me an example.
The example is--I can't speak on behalf of a culture if that's not my culture. That's the example right there. If I grew up in Brooklyn, and you grew up on Long Island, you really can't come to Brooklyn and speak on my behalf. Because you don't understand the lifestyle. So, if you're gonna take hiphop, and you're not part of the hiphop culture, you didn't grow with the culture and you don't understand the culture, but you have a lot of money and you want to invest in the culture, and then feel because you invested your money you should control how the culture is presented, you'll never ever be able to capitalize. Because you don't know how. It ain't that you don't have the best intentions. You just don't understand how! A lot of the reason why hiphop hasn't been at the forefront [until recently] is because artists have never been in the position to present the culture.
So now that they are, let's assume the bloodsuckers won't strike back at the millennium. Give me a best-case scenario for hiphop's future.
I think you're gonna start to find a lot more executive artists in the millennium--artists who are sitting behind a desk and dictating how shit works in these corporate machines, allowing the music--for what it truly is--to blossom and become the mainstream nucleus. You know what I'm sayin'?
Yeah. Maybe my hopes for hiphop were too high, but I kinda thought the culture had something better to offer than the old corporate structure under different ownership.
Ownership is the key. If motherfuckers is establishing ownership, then that is the change right there. Before any newness can be brought about, that change has to happen. A build-and-destroy process has to take place first.
