Busta Rhymes has shut down the suggestion that older rappers don’t “respect” the younger generation of artists.
Appearing on British entrepreneur Steven Bartlett’s The Diary of a CEO podcast, the legendary rapper took issue with the narrative that older heads don’t have time for young rappers.
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“I’m never gonna listen to the narrative of the elder statesmen or the older MCs don’t really respect what the new guys is doing. That shit is bullshit,” Busta said.
“Speaking for myself and the type of artist I surround myself with, we don’t feel like that. We don’t move like that. When we was young artists, we wanted the big dudes to put their arms around us.”
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He continued: “Chuck D gave me my name, Big Daddy Kane used to let me come to his crib, he put me on his albums, De La Soul, they did the same shit for us. I feel like it’s only right we do the same shit for the next generation of muthafuckas, especially if they dope.
“And I’m a fan of a lot of these new artists. I wanna work with them ’cause they still inspiring me to wanna go in the studio and stay razor blade sharp with my shit. And I see a lot of them paying homage. There’s a lot of muthafuckas walking around with hairstyles like how I used to wear it with my dreads.”
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Busta concluded by saying: “I just wanna make sure they know we not only here for them to give them the answers and the mentorship and the guidance and the information. I also want them to know we love them too, we fans of what y’all doing, we see you paying homage and we want y’all to know we paying homage to y’all too.”
Listen to his comments at the 1:38:30 mark below.
Busta Rhymes has previously been open about wanting to work with younger rappers and has collaborated with a slew of them including Coi Leray, Kodak Black and DaBaby.
He also recently named a number of younger peers as dream collaborators, with the likes of J. Cole, Drake, JID and Coco Jones on his wish list.
Speaking on The Breakfast Club last year, Busta said: “I ain’t work with Cole yet, I wanna work with Cole. I’m a huge fan of JID. JID is crazy. Big shout out to JID.
“Huge fan of Drake. Would love to work with Drake. Coco Jones is incredible to me. I’m a huge fan of Janelle Monáe too.”
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The Flipmode Squad frontman also named R&B singer October London, who he likened to Marvin Gaye, and Houston rapper Tobe Nwigwe, who he hailed as “incredible.”
