Busta Rhymes will unleash Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God at the magical hour of midnight EST on Friday (October 30). Ahead of its release, the veteran Hip Hop artist shared the Kendrick Lamar-assisted single “Look Over Your Shoulder” on Thursday morning (October 29), which coincided with his interview with Apple Music.
During the conversation, Bus-A-Bus told host Zane Lowe about the making of the song and how he got his hands on the original 16-track multi two-inch tape reel of the 1970 Jackson 5 classic “I’ll Be There.”
“The incredible coming together of this record was a true magical experience,” Busta says. “It started off one time with me being stuck in the studio, in Quad Studio, in Manhattan in New York. I had gotten a batch of beats from Nottz, who produced this track, and he’s been significant in a lot of the production for all of my solo albums.
“But he had given me this batch of beats probably five, six months before I actually even listened to it because I get so many beats from Nottz that sometimes I don’t get around to listening to all of his shit, this beat in particularly, I didn’t really even realize I had this sitting in my hard drive because I downloaded it, put it in the hard drive, but I just never listened to it.”
Busta continues, “Finally, we are in a snow storm in New York and they declared it a national emergency and gave everyone a curfew. I refused to accept the curfew so I stayed in the studio. So I stayed in the studio, they shut the Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge down, they shut the Midtown Tunnel down, so I couldn’t leave the city anyway once it passed 11 o’clock.
“So I was like, ‘Fine. I’m going to stay in the studio tonight.’ I stumbled on the beat. When I looked at the date of when I got the beat from Nottz, I couldn’t believe that I had this sh-t so long the whole time. So I ended up putting a verse on it. I sent it to Kendrick. Kendrick bodied the verse, sent it back.”
“Look Over My Shoulder” is the first time fans got to hear Kendrick rap in 2020. He opens the song with, “I wrote my first bars in the car with Stacey/How bizarre, my battle scars at large would lace me/Big marbles, n-gga/I lead this new generation, boy/Don’t argue with us/Marvelous beat selectors, authors and novel spitters.”
“I got to big-up Kendrick, I got a big-up Top Dog, the whole TDE family,” Busta adds. “I got to thank all of the people that was involved with clearing this shit for me and giving me their blessing on being able to use this. And it just was unbelievable, and incredible, and just profound for me to be blessed with this gift.”
Kendrick Lamar's 1st 2020 Raps To Be Heard On Busta Rhymes' 'ELE 2: The Wrath Of God' Album
Elsewhere in the interview, Busta admits releasing the album is “nerve racking like a muthafucka” but implores his fans to listen to it front-to-back in order not to miss the magic of the project.
“It’s crazy for me, because I come from the times where you buy the CD, you buy the cassette, you buy the vinyl,” he explains. “You know what I’m saying? Even though iTunes is still happening, you still downloaded an album and listened to this shit in its entirety, man.
“And now it’s like, you put all of this work into your shit, and you just hope that people receive it in the body of work that you are sharing it with them in, from top to bottom. I know people, at some point, they’re going to pick the sh-t apart. You’re going to take this one song and stream this one song and stream that song. But I really want people to understand how much you do yourself an injustice by not listening to the cohesive body of work from top to bottom without skipping the shit. You know what I’m saying?”
ELE 2: The Wrath of God serves as the follow-up to 1998’s ELE: The Final World Front and boasts features from Bell Biv DeVoe, Q-Tip, Mariah Carey, Rakim, Pete Rock, Rick Ross and more. Listen to “Look Over My Shoulder” above.
Man, would of loved to see a Drake feature to truly make this a Hip-Hop album. Not bad tho!
Quit trolling.
Fire track. Beautiful with the Jackson sample
Kendrick is so overrated.
Ok. Rap better so we can overrate you.
Part of this beat I love and part of it I’m not so crazy about. I think it’ll grow on me though.
Same here… it’s so close but it seems like a thinker album cut, not meant to be easily digestible, hope Nottz got more on this project.
fvcking hell, Kendrick flow on this is unreal. very impressive
busta continuing this slow beat trend thats going on atm. i like it. trying to keep busta’s boisterous personality on a slow track must be hard but fvck he did well
Nottz has always been one of the dopest…..One Night..Doctors Advocate….underrated as hell….he’s never mentioned with the greats but should be right next to 9th Wonder, Doom, Madlib and Alchemist in their primes
I’m feelin’ this right here. Kendrick murdered the track. Busta did his thing too…overall, I like it. This track is good for Hip-Hop.
What a damn liar making stuff up like that . Look busta , u guna make up a story about how u was in lockdown n found this track thats been laying around for ages but yet this track leaked in mid 2018 ??? If ur guna make up some rubbish about a song you might wanna make sure that its been out for 2 years . I understand he is trying to make it sound like it was all organic and came together all natural like but you didnt rap over it and then send it to kendrick … all the lyrics are the same as the version I have on my fone. I wasn’t aware we was in quarantine 2 years ago. This was for kendrick lamar’s DAMN! album and was scrapped. This guy is a straight BUSTER for lying .
You speak the truth this was on that leaked Kendrick “EP” Bad kid chill city. Busta was on that version, this story he’s telling is 100% fiction.