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.
“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.
“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.”
Thats cuz pac wasnt writing to the brat, he was just using the BPM of the drums to get the syllables of his bars on point. Lots of rappers cant do this, they get caught up on the pianos of a beat and let it channel their emotions. But technically a beat is a beat and you should be able to spit any lyrics to any beat if the BPM is the same speed. Im surprised a young Busta didnt get this.
I hear you
.. but please believe Busta gets it. He was just tired of the same track. You can put syllables on the snares, but there’s all types of elements to the beat you can play off of. Guitars, piano…
Just depends on the artist or the style. Both of them dudes were vets, even THEN..
After the NY incident most of 2pac’s songs were all the same song anyway who cares… one two three four five six or seven ways to rhyme hennessy with murder me etc
He rhymed Hennessey only four or five times in his career. But you’re stupid, so you don’t know this.
@ Hemoroid Granger, You sound like an ignorant moron. Instead of saying stupid things on the internet, log off and go spend time with your boyfriend so you can stop embarrassing yourself.
I AM SMART I UNDERTAND THE CONCEPT OF METRONOMES SO LET ME EXPLAIN IT TO YOU ALL. I LOVE TIM POOL.