Fans have been patiently waiting for a Busta Rhymes solo album to surface for years. During a conversation with Zane Lowe and Ebro Darden at Beats 1 NYC Studio opening last week, Bus-A-Bus finally explains what the hold up is — and Dr. Dre is partially to blame.
Busta explained Dre basically wanted him to start over.
“Nine albums later, I’m working on an album for nine years,” Busta said. “The album that I’m getting ready to release, I’ve been recording this shit since 2000 and fucking nine. I credit that patience to the Dr. Dre experience because when I was in Aftermath, this was the first time that I was stripped of all the memorabilia of my accolades and what I’ve accomplished and how great Busta Rhymes is; in my own head and from the people and from my fucking résumé.
“Dre be like, ‘Yo, you had a great one, but you want to do it different. You want to see new results, you gotta do it a new way. Welcome to Aftermath my nigga.’ I’m like, ‘What the fuck do this mean?’”
Busta did end up releasing album with Aftermath in 2006 called The Big Bang but that was his only release under the imprint.
The Hip Hop O.G. recently spoke to HipHopDX about his long-awaited solo project but he wasn’t able to unveil the title just yet. Busta did, however, assure his fans it would be coming before 2018 is up.
“It’s definitely coming this year,” he said last month. “9th Wonder has heard the album in its entirety several times. Just Blaze, Rapsody and they have all been very vocal about it through the social media platforms, and I am super grateful to them for cosigning, their endorsements, the whole anticipation that they’ve been creating.
“They’re all legends. They’re all icons in the game and you know, when they speak, people listen. It’s something I’ve never really had happen in this dynamic where word-of-mouth and the fellow comrade endorsement publicly in this dynamic has happened at this magnitude.”
The forthcoming album would be released under Epic Records. [apple_news_ad type=”any”]
Gotta hear the album before I believe it……..nine years is a long time, hope it doesn t dated.
Dre screwing over artists. Shocking.
But he ain’t like it when Jerry and Suge did it to him.
I know it must be tempting- the thought of signing with Dre.. but artists should always think twice before signing to Aftermath, if they care about ever seeing the light of day and not getting shelved. Dre is a genius and one of the GOATs of hip hop producers, but as a label head, that isn’t his forte (same with Em). If you’re not putting up Eminem or 50 Cent (well, the 50 of yesteryear that is), he don’t care about you. He also cant seem to focus on more than one project at a time. He would be best in a partnership where he’s more involved in the music part- producing and executive producing, engineering/mixing, shit even signing talent.. but not running everything- I guess you could say how it was at Death Row, at least for a time before things fell apart.
Kendrick went to Aftermath after Section 80, he’s how many albums deep now under the imprint? 4-5 projects with solo and movie soundtracks and unmastered untitled. Anderson Paak signed just as he was releasing Malibu, he’s put out a single, album is fully mixed, should be out this year, the suits at interscope are the only ppl left to hold that up. Em pretty much releases whenever he has a project ready to go, LP or full EP, but he’s the exception. And after scrapping Detox, Dre recorded an album and released it while working on the NWA movie which ‘inspired’ him to record an album. There are artists that get lost in the process. My guess is some artists are far more gifted creatively and can bring their own in house teams and processes to the lab to put together music on a really high level and Dre simply exec produces, doesn’t get involved with the actual production of a bunch of songs. Those are the artists that release projects. But if your just an artist with bars, or you bring drama to the table and can’t handle being given creative direction if aftermath has to handle every element of the creative and recording process, those are the ones that never see the light of day. And not everyone whose been on the label have an ear or the patience to nit pick their records. Busta used to release an album a year, each mostly driven by 1 or 2 hot singles from top notch producers. Nobody ever mentions busta’s albums as classics or just really good albums. Aftermath is looking to set a higher bar across the board, they don’t always hit it, but pound for pound they release albums that can stay in rotation or sound great years later.
Dre isn’t any different from most label heads. If you don’t have hit songs, they don’t release. Eve, Stat Quo,a nd all of the other people who got shelved didn’t have hits on the chart to make it happen, which has nothing to do with talent or how good they are. It just be like that some time. A million stories of this artist was signed to Columbia or Sony or some shit and didn’t get a release there because the timing wasn’t right. Same with Aftermath and every other label. It’s so much shit in Death Row’s vault that never saw the light of day and never would have because the shit didn’t hit, and people who may have herd it back then might have thought it was dope.
Stat Que got shelved because he didnt like a hook eminem told him to rap and dumbass said something like “pay me 1 million dollars and ill do the hook!”
bitch got dropped from the label straight away…lol
If Q-tip doesn’t have a few beats in there, I’m not too excited.
Can’t wait
Large Homo whining about what another man did or didn’t to do to him what’s new?
man busta is on some shit… anything he released after the big bang was booty…. and rightfully the big bang album wasn’t all that either…. busta being some tough guy instead of being the dope emcee that we know him from….HOPEFULLY THIS ELE2 album is fiyah!
damnnnnnnnnnnnnnn how he get dropped from Young Money? lmao
He asked to leave.
Busta has lost his identity. He doesn’t know what to rap about or what style to embrace. He’s been trying so hard to convince us that he’s gangster for the past decade that he forgot what actually got him here. Dope rhymes and a FUN style, not the angry rhinoceros roid raging and bloating up from sizzurp.
You got a point
Am I the only one who thinks The Big Bang is actually a dope ass album? It’s not perfect by any means, but to me, it’s one of Busta’s best albums from start to finish, the only song I don’t really fuck with is I Love My Bitch, the rest of that shit bang though, good beats, good lyrics, good subject matters. I do agree that Busta hasn’t dropped anything great since then, but I’m actually anticipating this new one to be great, considering the people who worked on it and are hyping it up.
Nope. It was tight and better than most of the other Aftermath stuff that came out in that era.
Big Bang was solid all the way through, some of his best work.
Best Busta Rhymes album and some of Dr Dres best fucking beats of all time are on it
I agree the big bang was a good album but he had a run before then with E.l.e and the other joint he dropped not too long after. His beat picking and rhymes schemes were crazy back then
I thought this bloated turd was signed to young money?
The Big Bang is the last busta album I actually checked for and liked. But if this is the aftermath formula then why haven’t 50 or EM succumbed to this. U don’t see Eminem going 9 years without an official lp. What’s up with that busta? In my opinion I just don’t think he has any good content to offer anymore. His time passed. That song legend of the fall offs is about him.
Dre produces very few songs on Eminem’s albums, usually tte leading single is Dre’s production. With busta he just a rapper And That can be a reason why.
Busta rhymes is a top notch artist!!! When it comes to lyrical mastery very few can hold their own. Year of the dragon was dope, the return of the dragon was dope and those weren’t mainstream albums… I think times has changed and music has become diluted to the point we’re if someone like Busta puts an album out folks will swear it’s wack and listen to this trash that’s out now. None of his albums sucked.