Busta Rhymes has been sharing a lot about his life and career in the wake of the release of his latest album Blockbusta, including the fact that he never originally intended to become a rapper.
The Brooklyn juggernaut stopped by The Diary of the CEO, where host Steven Bartlett took him on a journey revisiting his entire journey as an artist. During the chat, Busta revealed that when he first took an interest in Hip Hop culture, he wanted to be a DJ.
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“I never really got good at it to be the DJ,” he said. “I was able to do it, but I was never nice enough to become the superstar DJ. And at that time, the DJ was super important. Because all of the groups had the DJ name. The DJ was always the big shot.
“I’m not really the technology dude, so all of this equipment shit, it was just a little complicated for me,” he concluded.
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After catching his second charge for selling crack by the time he was 12, Busta says his mother relocated him to Long Island, where he met his Leaders Of The New School groupmate Charlie Brown. While the two became fast friends, a desire to get back at Brown is what drove Bus to write his first rhyme at the age of 13.
“Charlie Brown was like the number one rap dude in school at the time,” he recalled. “So one day I’m coming out of the school and we get in the school yard; there was a cypher that was formed on this particular day and it was a big one. There was C. Brown rapping and two other kids; and C. Brown was getting most of the shine. I walk over to the cypher and I started beatboxing. Brown he’s doing his rap shit to my beatbox, I’m keeping the beat going for him.”
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He continued: “Everything was smooth in the beginning,” he continued. “And then like probably like a good 30-40 seconds into it, he just started disrespecting me. And I’m kinda torn between should I punch this dude in his face, or should I keep beatboxing and not be the party pooper of the party energy that we’re having here. And I’m saying to myself, ‘I’m from Brooklyn.'”
Just as he thought he would have to get physical, Busta said, C. Brown stopped rapping and began getting props from the other kids in the yard.
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“I ain’t wanna look like a sore loser, even though there was no battle, he just chose to diss me for no reason,” Busta told Bartlett. “Long story short, that was the day I said, ‘Aight, Imma go home and Imma write a rhyme tonight. And Imma come back tomorrow and Imma fuckin’ disrespect this yout in front of everybody.'”
Check out the clip below, starting at the 21:05 mark.
The next day, the young would be MC, born Trevor Smith, returned to school and did exactly what he had intended to do.
He cites that afternoon as the moment where he began taking rap seriously and the first time that he felt the persona we’ve come to know as Busta Rhymes emerge.
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“And my name wasn’t even Busta Rhymes at the time, I had a terrible name,” he added laughing. “I had two: I had my name from being a part of the Five Percent Nation Of The Gods And Earths, which that name was cooler; that name was Lord Taheim. But somehow I abandoned that to become like the rappers that had the three part names. I changed my name to Chill-O-Ski.”
The kid who accidentally became a rapper on a Long Island school yard has gone on to have an illustrious career spanning 34 years and yielding 11 solo albums. Over the course of that time he has worked with and inspired a number of younger artists, most recently including Coi Leray, Bia, and two of his own children.
In the aptly-titled new single “Legacy,” which hit the streets on Thursday (November 23) and was included on his latest release Blockbusta, Bussa Buss teamed up with his two daughters, Cacie (aka Cién) and Mariah (aka Rai) and son Trillian.
In addition to his three children, Blockbusta also includes a bevy of high profile features, as Busta first announced a week ahead of the project’s November 24 release.
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The 19-track effort sees him connecting with the incarcerated Young Thug, BIA, Quavo, Blxst, T-Pain, DaBaby, Coi Leray, BLEU, Swizz Beatz, JNR Choi, Giggs, Shenseea, Morray.
The project is famously executive produced by Pharrell, Swizz Beatz and Timbaland.
