Busta Rhymes has opened up about his experience working with 2Pac, recalling the time he watched the late rapper write multiple songs to the same beat.
Speaking on former NBA stars Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson’s All the Smoke podcast, the Brooklyn rap legend reflected on his “incredible” relationship with ‘Pac and one particularly memorable studio session with the All Eyez On Me MC.
AD LOADING...
“When ‘Pac got back from [Atlanta, where he shot an off-duty police officer], ‘Pac became super [paranoid] because he felt like the cops were out to kill him no matter what state he was in,” he said.
“He had gotten a wild arsenal. He kept an MPC beat machine in the crib and I literally watched him write about seven songs to the same Isley Brothers sample. Each song was about different shit. I couldn’t understand that.
AD LOADING...
“After a while, I get tired of hearing the motherfucking beat. I don’t wanna hear that beat to write no more songs to it. I write the one song to it, I’m off the damn beat. He wrote seven songs to the same beat!”
Check out his story at the 1:47:35 mark below.
Lil Cease previously revealed that The Notorious B.I.G. wanted Busta Rhymes and Nas to help him take on 2Pac during their infamous feud in the mid ’90s.
During an interview with The Art of Dialogue in 2022, the former Junior M.A.F.I.A. rapper explained that Biggie was eying his fellow New Yorkers to join him on “The Ugliest,” a J Dilla-produced track that would serve as a response to ‘Pac’s “Hit ‘Em Up.”
“It was for Busta Rhymes’ [album, The Coming]. The song never came out,” he said. “It was supposed to been Busta Rhymes, Nas and Big. It was produced by Q-Tip, but nobody did their verse after Big did his. Nobody laid they verse on it, so the song kinda just pushed away.”
“The Ugliest” was shelved by Busta over fears of fueling the East Coast-West Coast beef, although Biggie’s verse later surfaced on his posthumous Born Again cut “Dangerous MCs.”
