How Busta Rhymes Turned 300 Unreleased J Dilla Beats Into His New Album

I ain’t a snack guy.

No, never? You have no secret guilty pleasures?

None.

Or non-guilty pleasures?

What about healthy?

I don’t do snacks.

How about this? Would you consider picking a snack for us to eat?

You’re the curator.

Yeah, you can curate the snack.

My head ain’t really wrapped around the snack thing.

Well, maybe at the hour mark, maybe you’ll feel more enthused about it.

Nah, I won’t.

[AUDIO LOGO]

Welcome to “The New York Times Popcast,” your mad ultrasonic esophagus of weekly culture chat. I’m Jon Caramanica, and I’m the critic.

I’m Joe Coscarelli, and I’m the reporter.

And I’m Busta Rhymes, and you are on “Popcast.”

We are all on “Popcast.” Everybody in this room is on “Popcast.” Everybody out there, kind of on “Popcast,” too.

Busta Rhymes is here. Busta Rhymes has been a game changing rapper for 35 years, from Leaders of the New School and a breakout verse on A Tribe Called Quest “Scenario” in the early 1990s.

To “Woo Hah!! Got You All In Check.”

^BUSTA RHYMES, “WOO HAH!!

When I step up in the place Ayo, I step correct Woo-hah! Woo-hah! Got you all in check

Huge features. “Don’t Cha” by The Pussycat Dolls.

Maybe the most consequential guest rapper in hip-hop history?

He’s back with a new album coming out. That’s “Dillagence 2” on All J Dilla Beats, the late Detroit producer sequel to a 2007 mixtape.

Welcome to the show. We’re happy to have you. You’re here on a very specific occasion.

I think we should just jump right in with the new music. You just dropped a new single, “SPAZZZ.”

Quite literally on the couch.

Literally.

Yeah, literally just said, we have to pause one second. We can’t start, because I have to post my new song.

I didn’t get the music three decades later. It kind of came periodically throughout the relationship, from when we first worked together on The Coming album, which was 30 years ago, this year. In my experience with Dilla, he was a man of few words, you know what I’m saying? I heard him talk more when he was rhyming than actual regular conversation.

Conversation, yeah.

You know what I’m saying? A lot of the times, when I was around Dilla, after we have our initial greet, give each other dap, smoke a little spliff together, he’s immediately getting to the work. And you pretty much just sit around and vibe and just watch the process, and Dilla definitely was a man of humor. Like, he loved to laugh and smile and just be in a feel good energy space, but he definitely was deeply entrenched in wanting to live in the creative space constantly.

But he front loaded me so much music throughout the years. He was really always looking forward to what the result of what I was going to do to the music he gave me would turn out to be. He would just shoot me shit constantly, knowing that I was super duper drawn to his production style and the pockets that his music would land in, and it would make me feel inspired to always want to challenge myself to marry his music in a way that just felt as close to perfect as possible.

Talk to me about the rhythms of a J Dilla beat, because you, of course, known for extremely acrobatic speed rapping, finding these pockets you’re talking about, Dilla is known for being off kilter, right? This idea of Dilla time, right? There’s a big book that came out by Dan Charnas, a couple years ago, breaking down the musicology of what makes a Dilla beat have that sort of drunken, uneven quality. What does that do to you as a rapper? What are you hearing in that, that allows you to attack these songs in different ways?

I mean, for me, I’m more feeling than hearing. Sonically, I don’t think there’s ever really, like, a beat, even if it’s not something that I would want to rhyme on, that I thought was or I felt like I didn’t like how it sounded. I think the most interesting part about it was he mastered the understanding of knowing that the soulfulness of music comes from human timing, you know?

You want to feel the texture of the hand.

Human timing is never perfectly on time all the time. Quantizing timing from a computer is a 1, 2, 3, 4. Any human timing, it’s never always perfectly on time in the same pattern of timing through the whole song. So the human timing, it adds a feeling, because it’s coming from a soul.

So Dilla, I just feel like he mastered that in a way that was unlike anybody else. He’s not the only producer that does it, you know what I’m saying? But he’s the only producer that makes me feel what I feel from when he does it.

What does it bring out in you as a rapper? Because I’m sure, you’ve rapped on hundreds of quantized beats that are perfectly metronomic, right?

I don’t think it’s words that can explain it. I think it’s feeling that it brings out. So you feel what you feel from Busta Rhymes when I’m rhyming on Dilla. That might be a little different from what it is when I’m rhyming on everything else, even if it’s not quantized. Because even with Questlove, when he plays drums, and I think we get that feel from our late, great beloved brother D’Angelo’s music —

Who is featured on this album with you.

[RECORD SCRATCHES]

I ain’t disclosing none of these things yet.

OK, all right.

Dilla worked closely with D’Angelo, too, with Quest, when he was doing Soulquarians.

Of course.

And I think that feeling is what also contributed to what made D’Angelo’s work so incredible, too, because he understood the art and the mastering of that feel. If you notice, I’ve never tried the speed rap on a Dilla beat. It doesn’t warrant that. It doesn’t give me that feeling to want to do that, or I don’t even think in that way when I listen to his music.

Sure.

What’s the state of the speed rapping these days? Do people still respect being able to flow quickly in the way that you’re renowned for? Do you see that as a lineage and a legacy that is ongoing, or is it out of time, out of date?

I don’t think that anything is out of style or out of date, if you do the shit in an amazing way that motherfuckers can’t front or refuse. I never speed rapped because I wanted to rap fast. I loved the way that the rhythm pattern of what I was doing worked with the beat, because I played drums.

My father got me my first drum set, Remo 6-piece, Remo drum set, when I was, like, seven years old. And so, I’m into drums, and I’m into rhythm, and I produce, and I make beats myself. A lot of my flow patterns come from the perspective of looking at how am I going to add to this track or this production as an instrument. Like, I’m playing dodgeball with the kick and the snare, and I could fit this amount of words between the kick and the snare in that little dead space.

But you don’t hear me say a word on the kick or the snare, and between the kick and snare after, how do I fit another three, four words in that bitch? But if I gotta say it quickly to make it fit, it’s more about that than it is about speed rapping, you know what I’m saying? So I don’t speed rap, because I thought it was cool at the time. I speed rapped, because it felt right for the song.

You’ve said over the years that you were sitting on some 300 unreleased —

Almost 300.

Nearly 300 beats. How did you boil that down to what’s ending up on this “Dilligence 2” album?

What felt right, that’s really what it boils down to. I don’t overthink the music no more. I think a lot of the times, when you overthink the shit, it ends up never coming out, you know what I’m saying? I don’t enjoy sitting on shit that feels right.

Mm-hmm.

I used to do that.

Mm-hmm.

And when I did “The Big Bang” album and when I did “Extinction Level Event 2,” it was the overthinking process of trying to reach a perfection level that’s unreachable, and that overthinking, it worked against me. And you lose time that you ain’t going to get back, and I’m just not doing that anymore.

So with that being said, everything that ended up on “Diligence 2” felt like it was perfect together, because I started it in November of 2025, Dilla, Staten —

Ma.

Ma Dukes and everybody that contributed to the project and was a part of it. Once the word started to spread that this was happening, a lot of incredible people that respects and honors both of our legacies separately, but even more so together, it was almost like a desire and a need to want to be a part of it, because a lot of people never had the opportunity to work with Dilla, let alone meet Dilla.

You have Lil Wayne on this album, who, as far as I can tell, never really rapped on a Dilla beat before.

Never.

And then you have Common on this album. D’Angelo, as I mentioned, also a late collaborator of Dilla from over the years. Was it important to you to curate that list of new people who should be part of the Dilla legacy, and people who are already part of the Dilla legacy? Like, was that the idea?

No, I just focused on wanting to make great music. The timeless greats that are on the album, that already has work history and relationship history with Dilla, ended up on the songs, because they contributed to the song and made what it was supposed to be. But if it ain’t right for this song or for this project, it’s just not going to happen.

And tell me about these D’Angelo vocals. So were they on this Dilla beat already, or you were able to bring together different sessions from over the years?

I was gifted with something that they did, that they didn’t finish, once the word started to spread about this project. it’s like, people just started to make sure that I had some really special pieces and moments, and that was one of them. I didn’t that it existed, because it was done 20 something years ago.

They started something, and it just never got finished. I loved the both of them, so I wanted to do it whatever justice that I could do it and continue to uphold the legacies of these brothers. I just want to do my part in delivering in that way, not just for the culture, but for them and for all of us, you know what I’m saying?

How heavy is that emotional process for you, I mean, especially on a record like the one with D? You have two folks that are close collaborators of yours from the past who have passed on. Do you feel a heaviness, an emotional heaviness, when you’re engaging with making music with the ghosts of these folks? Does that weigh on you in any way?

That part don’t really got nothing to do with the song, you know what I’m saying? Like, that don’t got nothing to do with the music. That got everything to do with the death being so final in those two brothers for me. It was very, very, very long-term friendships.

You know, I met D’Angelo before I met J Dilla. So it’s like — and I met the met both of them through Q-Tip and Ali. So it’s just challenging to not have them or not have Phife Dawg and not have a lot of people that you shared a lot of time with over the years. When they’re not here no more, it’s going to always reoccur, that feeling of missing them and just wishing, or just even going back, harboring on the thoughts of some of the good, the bad, and the indifferent times.

When you were coming up as a teenager, rapping in your 20s and finding fame, there weren’t rappers in their 50s still doing it at the level that you and your peers have been lucky enough to see. When you were looking at the forecast of your career, and you’re thinking, OK, I’m big in my 20s, maybe I’ll be big in my 30s, like, what did you think your 40s and your 50s and your 60s looked like?

I didn’t look that far. I also think the culture is young, you know what I’m saying? So you wasn’t going to have that from the time that the culture was born. This hip-hop shit is about 52, 53 years old, probably tops at this point. So it’s like, a lot of us were either just born before the culture started or was being born when it was starting, and we grew with the culture, and it grew with us. I think this is the first generation or first time frame in the culture, where you’re going to see it lead the charge for it to continue to happen on a regular basis, because a lot of the generations behind us are after us, rather, they’re not actually too far off from 50 years old themselves —

Yeah, right.

— in the next 5 to 10 years.

Yep.

I don’t put a timeline on greatness. You continue to do it as long as you’re amazing at it, you still love it, and you know how to monetize this shit the right way, and I think that’s the most important part.

One thing that I love to see on the internet, I feel like this comes up every couple of months. There’s a great video of you, embracing a younger artist and essentially giving them their flowers. Usually, it’s the other way around. It’s a younger artist going to an OG and saying, hey, you did something for me, even if you don’t know. You do the opposite. Can you tell me why it’s important to you for you to look someone in the eye and say, what you do is valuable?

I don’t have no problem showing love, because that’s kind of how I was treated by the gods of the music when I was coming up. So it was like, to get on stage with Leaders of the New School, and you got Dayline in the building, or you got —

Tribe.

Cold Crush Brothers is in the building.

Public Enemy.

Public Enemy is in the building. It’s like, these brothers came, and they embraced us with grace, and they made us understand that they’ve seen some sort of future in what we was doing that was promising. Like, they didn’t really just, your shit is dope, pleasure to meet you, get out of here. It wasn’t just —

Right.

So I’m a reciprocator of the energy, and when I feel like I’m receiving good energy, I give it. I love to keep my finger on the pulse of what’s going on. So I pay attention to shit, and I’m inspired by shit that people wouldn’t even expect.

Yeah, it goes beyond hip-hop. There’s video of you with Adele. You popped up recently at the Charlie Puth concert. What brought you to the Charlie Puth concert?

Well, Charlie Puth is an incredibly huge fan of hip-hop.

Sure.

You know what I’m saying? And he knows hip-hop. Like, me and him had an extensive Dilla conversation, you know what I’m saying? So he just loves the culture, and he reached out to us to want us to come out with him, because he was at The Garden, you know, prime playoff time with the Knicks, and we was fortunate enough to have our schedules aligned. So it was just something that was just a dope opportunity. I’m a fan of Charlie, too, so —

There’s a lot of cross-generational stuff with you, because I feel like you’re so major for people my age, and even younger, in terms of breaking open our expectation of what hip-hop could look and sound like, right? I remember being a kid, seeing your videos on BET or MTV and thinking like, I didn’t this was allowed, whether it’s the sound or the dress or the Hype Williams extravagance, the videos. You know, you have someone, like Billie Eilish saying, I learned how to rap. Your “Look At Me Now” verse, that was the first verse she could rap.

Stuff like that goes viral every year, right, or a couple times a year. What do you think it is about what you were doing going all the way back to scenario, but up through “Woo Ha!!, Put Your Hands?” Like, what was it about what you were doing there that you think has been able to transcend demographics and generations in that way?

The common denominator is the feel good energy.

And the total package-ness.

Yeah, because it all coincides. So you constantly are being given the same person and the same feeling in many different creative ways, even down to the lyrics. Like, the lyrics, when I’m performing on a record, I make sure that I’m doing it in a way that’s going to make people feel good, even if we talkin’ our street shit. I’m still display it in a way, where it’s going to entertain people from a feel good energy standpoint and just being free with it.

I don’t limit where and how I’m going to share the music, you know what I’m saying? Like, I’ll be on tour. We’ll go on tour with me, Missy, Timbaland, Ciara.

Right. You guys did that recently.

Yeah.

Legends tour.

Then I’ll not going to tour with 50 Cent and Jeremiah. But then I’ll be on a tour from a while ago with David Bowie, Blue Man Group, and fuckin’ Moby.

What tour was that? How did we miss that one?

Yeah.

What was backstage like at that tour?

It was calm.

Yeah.

It was calm. It was calm, because you know, Moby is a reserved energy, and David Bowie is super rock star and over the top on the stage. But he was just like —

Chill guy?

Super cool, you know what I’m saying? Blue Man Group, you didn’t really see them too often, because, I guess, they were spending a lot of time getting —

Getting in paint?

Yeah, prepping for each show.

[LAUGHING]

They were in wardrobe and makeup.

But the dopest shit about that is to see that the audience that was there and the fact that I was even considered to be a part of a lineup like that. It was another testament to the feel good energy that people get from Busta Rhymes, but I’m being seen in this way by the likes of greats on a David Bowie level. For me to be looked at in a way to where they would say, all right, we need a Busta Rhymes on this lineup, it’s like something about him that just transcends this spectrum of shit beyond measure.

If we go back to the early to mid ‘90s, I think about the sort of duo of “Scenario,” obviously, and then the “Flava In Ya Ear Remix,” and you do a very similar thing on both of those records, which is that you show up at the end, and you go grab the energy and shake the song up, a song in both cases that already are quite great. And then you go, and you say, well, what if we amplified it to another level?

A grand finale.

Yeah. So you’re there, batting cleanup, basically. Like, to me, those two songs have a lot in common, but there’s something a little different for me about “Flava In Ya Ear Remix,” because “Flava in Ya Ear Remix,” to me, was like, all the different tribes coming together. You have the Bad Boy. You have Biggie and Craig Mack. You have LL coming in with that sort of classic, like, “Walk With A Panther” flow, you know? And then you coming from the Native Tongue universe into the Bad Boy universe. Was it unusual in the moment to have folks from all those different parts of the New York rap tradition coming into the same break fool on the same record as it were?

It wasn’t really about the crew that you came from. It was just about if you was dope enough to rip it down on this record. Who’s going to bust ass when they get on this joint? Who’s going to show up, you know what I’m saying? Who’s going to handle their business when they pull up? And that’s really what it was — that’s what it became. It was like respectfully competing with each other.

Sure.

And just doing your part and delivering and making sure, at the end of the day, nobody don’t want to have that you’re the weakest link finger pointed at them.

Of course. And what’s the importance of going last on a song like that, and was it always clear that it would be you?

At that time, it meant that you had the verse to bring it home, and you had the best verse on the joint at that time. That doesn’t apply in the same way now.

Now, if you’re last, you might be the worst, because on streaming, people just want to skip.

I don’t think that the way people are wired anymore, even if the record is a dope record, a lot of the times, you ain’t going to hear this shit go to the end of the dope record, even if it ain’t a collab.

Right.

A lot of people’s focus nowadays primarily when these collabs is happening is they want to get their shit off first.

Yeah, not last.

Before the DJ cuts it off.

I was looking at the list of remixes that you did in the late ‘90s into the 2000s, Ja Rule “Holla Holla” remix, even coming up to the A$AP Ferg “Shabba REMIX,” the “All I Do Is Win Remix.” I did not even there was a Tracey Lee, “The Theme Remix.”

What’s your mentality when you’re going in the booth to do one of these songs, knowing that there might be 2, 3, 5 other rappers hoping to eat your lunch, basically? What was your mentality?

It didn’t matter if it was one MC, you know? The goal is always to try to be the one that the general consensus across the board, amongst your peers in the music game or the consumer, the general consensus, you always wanted it to turn out being that you stole the show, or you owned the moment, you know what I’m saying? And that’s really the mentality that it was all the time, because we came from battling in the street.

You know, there really wasn’t no buzz that you could get from social media, and everything was word of mouth. So you had to prove yourself every time when you stepped outside, and there was no such thing as when you come out the crib, somebody call you out. Nah, I ain’t battling today. That wasn’t an option neither.

Once people knew you was an MC, if you ever had to deal with being called out, you had to answer it. That’s just being a part of the recreational side of what we was doing. It made it even that much more serious when it became about reputation and business and the way you had to protect the value of your brand, you know what I’m saying? So if you wasn’t going to let yourself take a L in the street —

Definitely.

— you for damn sure ain’t taking no L on no record. It was good pressure.

Who’s your best competitor?

I was just going to say, who pushed you the hardest?

Yeah. Like, who’s the LeBron to your Steph or whatever? Who’s, like, the friendly rival who brings that out of you the most, or unfriendly, if it’s like that?

I don’t really have friendly rivals or unfriendly rivals, because I don’t rhyme with the same person regularly.

Right.

You know what I’m saying? But I’m inspired by — like, Q-Tip inspires me. J. Cole inspires me. Kendrick inspires me. Conway The Machine inspires me, Benny The Butcher. Roc Marciano inspires me.

Do you still write by hand?

No, I haven’t written by hand in a long time. But I started to run into this issue where, if I’m writing a 16, but I’m taking my time with it, because maybe the lines ain’t coming as quickly. By the time I would get to, like, the 11th or the 12th bar, I might have forgot the way I meant to say the second and the third bar.

That would frustrate the shit out of me, because I’m like, damn, how did I say this? And I’m looking at the words, but I’m not remembering what the cadence or the flow pattern was intended for these words that I’m staring at. And now, I gotta fuckin’ figure out a new way to say the same shit. When I initially wrote it, I had the perfect way to say it.

So I was like, I don’t want to ever lose those moments. So as I think that shit, I sit right in front of that bitch and tell the punch, let’s catch this, let’s catch that. It’s like, what is it, “The Deadliest Catch,” that TV show?

Yeah, yeah, about the boat.

Yeah.

Out in Massachusetts.

Seafood with the crabs and the lobster and all of that.

Yep.

It’s pretty much that is the process for me. It’s like, you throw your fishnet in the universe. Sometimes, you catch a bunch of fuckin’ lobster and crab and shrimps. And sometimes, you’d go out there and throw your shit in the universe, and you don’t catch nothing.

But it’s interesting, to me, that you’ve adapted with the new technology, because I feel like a lot of rappers of your generation, or even someone like an Eminem, is still writing stuff out on the legal pad by hand.

There was no right or wrong way, though.

Totally. You putting out this album with these Dilla beats, like, that’s something so homemade, right? There’s something so old school about it. In this time, when you can order up a Dilla beat on an AI prompt, probably any time, and a lot of people getting older, trying to stay with the times, they’re more interested in making AI music than they are about digging back in the crates and rapping on 20, 25, 30-year-old beats. Is that intentional for you to put out something that hearkens back, at this moment, when most people are looking forward?

I don’t want to put out 20, 30 year ago shit if it don’t sound and feel like it’s right now shit.

Right.

It’s not vintage for vintage sake.

Or a lot of people find comfort in old shit. You’re quite striking in that you’ve never settled and said, this is where I get off the highway. Everything after this, I got nothing to do with you, you know? It’s not a lot of artists of your generation. I think they’re like, my best shit was in 2004, and thank you so much.

Nah, I get it, because those moments, everlasting impressions were made. So they definitely hold sacred spaces in your heart, you know what I’m saying? There’s moments like that for me, but there’s so much new shit that still makes me feel like how I felt when I first heard “Rebel Without A Pause.”

I’m just in that space. But the thing, for me, is the Dilla shit sounds even better than now shit.

Right. It still sounds modern.

It’s beyond modern. It’s in the future. Motherfuckers still don’t know how to do and make the music feel like him. But what I’m saying is, what Busta Rhymes is feeling creatively in today’s day and time and how I would enjoy sharing how I’m approaching my music today, which is why I don’t overthink the music, from November to now, that’s not overthinking the music. When I started to put out “Extinction Level Event” in 2020, that album started being worked on since 2009, once I completed “Back On My Bullshit.” That’s 11 years.

Right. So you regret taking that long?

Abso-fuckin’- lutely. It’s just no sense in that.

Right.

The fuck you thinking about for 11 years, you know what I’m saying? Like, I mean, it wasn’t all the way about being over critical. It was also circumstances, too.

A lot going on.

I didn’t feel a lot of comfort in who I was putting music in the hands of.

Business wise.

Yeah, it was situations that I was in, that I didn’t want to stay in.

Right.

Those situations. So a lot of that factored in. But again, doing “Diligence 2” and doing it the right way and really making sure that every T was crossed and every I was dotted with the music, the business, the whole aesthetic, and making sure that the opportunity to give people the feeling that a lot of folks in this culture haven’t gotten yet, because many generations since Dilla passed. For a long time, I’m just like, yo, where’s the feeling of this Dilla shit? And do they even that this feeling exists?

Do you think you can reach a new audience? Do you think you can get young people in this glut of content, in this endless waterfall of music from their peers, from young artists? Like, can you get through to them? How do you get them to pay attention?

I’m not trying to get through to anybody. I’m trying to just make the dopest shit that I love. If it reaches you, that’s a blessing. If it doesn’t, hopefully, it eventually does, and I think the younger generation is already super displaying the fact that they’ve been hungry for this feeling.

That’s why you got the La Reezy’s. That’s why you got Coast Contra. That’s why you got Griselda. That’s why you got Alchemist, Black Milk, Kendrick.

You see that as a hunger for —

I see the success that they’re having on their levels, from the biggest level to the most successful on the underground level, and all of that is what was inspired by the shit that we loved.

Where do you see your influence, whether it’s musical, fashion, videos? Like, what was the last thing you saw, where you said, my DNA is there?

I’m never the one that feels like I need to say it, and I think that’s where the reward is the greatest. But Ludacris has said, to me, many a times that the Busta Rhymes DNA is in his blood.

100 percent.

Missy Elliott says it, you know what I’m saying? Kendrick has said it, you know? Doechii has said it, you know?

Yeah.

And I love what they do, and I love who they are, and I love what they have created and taken from what they influence has been and made it their own. It’s the same with me. Like, I took a lot of my shit from Cold Crush Brothers and Grandmaster Caz specifically. Rest in peace to the almighty JDL.

You know, same thing with Chuck D. I took a lot of shit from Chuck. Like, we was taught a lot of amazing shit from Public Enemy.

Are we talking showmanship, lyricism?

All of it.

Talk to me about showmanship, because I think that is something that helped establish what the Busta Rhymes proposition was in the ‘90s, for sure, and all the artists you just named as people who’ve said to you, like, I took Busta Rhymes. Those are the showmen and the show women of modern hip-hop. Who are you drawing from inspiration wise to know how to be not just a great rapper, but a great visual presence?

You know, we pulled a lot from the names that I mentioned, but even outside of that, there was other genres of music that was just crazy, to me, when I saw the live show.

Your Jamaican heritage.

Yeah, dancehall.

Yeah, yeah, the dancehall shit, obviously. Everybody knows that story, but this shit, like Parliament-Funkadelic, right? And then you would have shit, like Motley Crue and Black Sabbath and Queen.

Sure.

Prince, and Michael Jackson, and fucking Earth, Wind, and Fire, yo. When it come to the dancehall shit, it was Bob Marley.

He was like God sent. They had this dude named Eek-A-Mouse. He was crazy to me, too. His style and his charisma and the way his whole sound and feel was, it was like some shit that was like, this motherfucker is ill to me, yo.

Good album covers too.

Yeah, Shabba, Major Mackerel, and Admiral Bailey, and Papa San. And just taking a bit and a piece and an ingredient from all of these different things is what made me feel like there’s too much amazing shit you could be doing on the stage to just be walking around, acting like you’re too cool to show.

And yet, many do.

Still today, maybe more than ever.

That shit was weird. It was always weird, to me, that you get blessed with this opportunity to go up there and fuckin’ tear some shit down, but your ego won’t even let you. Sometimes, I watch artists, and I’m like, that you feel like you want to give more.

And you think it’s ego that’s blocking them?

I think a lot of that, because motherfuckers feel like — and to me, I think a lot of the times, motherfuckers is the discomfort of not looking cool in a snapshot or not looking cool in a way that could compromise the credibility that you feel you’re working so hard to protect, especially when you one of them dudes that want to be out here, talking a lot of that street shit. You got to kind of always remember to make it match in every dynamic of when you present yourself.

You also were one of the first rappers, in my memory, in the ‘90s, who started making clothes. Not only were you dressing in this highly coordinated, extravagant silhouettes, luxurious fabrics, but I remember when it was announced back then, Bushi was the name of the line. You know, I was actually Googling around the other day. You can still find some Bushi pieces there on eBay, if you want to go grab them. But tell me about that moment, because right now, we take for granted.

It’s like, oh, Travis Scott, of course, he’s got 50 sneakers with Nike, and he’s got a clothing line. You know, A$AP Rocky, got a clothing line. Everything post-Kanye is, like, obvious. Pharrell running Louis Vuitton, it’s obvious. It wasn’t so obvious in 1997 or 1998, when you were chipping away at that. Talk to me about wanting to make that part of your portfolio as well.

It’s all a part of the cultural aesthetic when it comes to hip-hop and just the way we did things in our community as Black people. It was always cool to have the first thing. The beauty of discovery was the shit and still is to this day, right?

People always like to be the one to say that they’re the first one to step out in a particular colorway of sneakers, right? Or whatever that designer line is, you want to be the first one to have whatever the thing is from that designer line that you can say on the record, nobody ain’t see this piece before me. But when you was able to find a piece that a motherfucker could never find, not only did you have it first, but now you’re the only one that has been able to ever come across this item.

One of none.

One of none. Before we actually got into a position, where we could showcase the shit we was doing, because we got the deal, we was on, we was able to be in these videos, and we could really showcase what we was creating and designing for ourselves. A couple times, I ran into situations, where I spent some good money on a fit, and I go to a party or something, and another motherfucker would be in there with the shit on. So I never really dug that. And probably after two to three times at the most of going through that, I just was like, I ain’t letting this happen no more. It ended up being more cost effective to move like that too.

You saved money.

I saved a lot of money.

So much of what you’re talking about, whether it’s comfort on stage or the fashion, has to do with how you feel in your own body. You’ve been open over the years about your health journey. There’s an amazing “Men’s Health” cover with you from a couple of years back, where you talk about your ups and downs. As you’re entering middle age, like, how do you feel physically, and what has that path been like for you to get to a place, where as you say, you’re happy and healthy in a way that maybe you weren’t when you were at the height of your fame?

I feel like I’m at a higher point of my career fame wise, because the botanical gardens is starting to grow.

Sure.

You’re getting Hollywood stars and Global Icon Awards and fucking Lifetime Achievement Awards, and just the abundance of flowers that I’ve been receiving between last year and this year, and movies is starting to pick up again.

“Naked Gun,” you’re in the remake.

Yeah, but even more so than that, there’s new movies coming —

Sure.

— that I just completed shooting towards the end of last year. There’s just too much amazing shit now that wasn’t happening then. But I get what you were saying as far as, like, the younger years and the newness and the freshness and the excitement of what we was doing at that time and the bigness of what we was doing with $2 million videos and shooting movies back then and going multiple platinum sales. The thing, for me, that I feel great about is because I love the weight loss. I love being in shape. I love the fact that the more that we’ve been able to master the shit that we do, the more dangerous we’ve become. If we was at our height to you, when we was learning as we go along, and I haven’t lost none of that energy, and I’ve mastered what you loved, as I was learning, when I was going along, but we mastered it now and how to apply that same energy and on a level of experience now in a way that’s crazier than it was then.

So you feel at a peak right now, because the mental is matching the physical is matching the artistic is matching the legacy? Like, you feel like everything is clicking at a higher level now?

Yeah, I mean, that’s what happens as you evolve.

Not for everyone.

Yeah, plenty of people, not so much.

One second.

Oh, sure.

How much longer is this interview?

About 20 minutes, maybe.

We gotta shorten that, or I need a break right now. It’s almost 5:00, and I gotta make some shit happen before the wire transfer deadline.

Oh, no.

Because I got to get some people some money to do what they need to do to promote my damn record that just dropped at 3:00 o’clock.

So can I just get a second to call my accountant?

Yes, call your accountant.

I mean, if you got to call the accountant, gotta call the accountant.

The accountant waits for no interview.

You got a motherfucking send this money to all the folks that the dots gotta connect.

If someone’s got to get paid, someone’s gotta get paid.

[BLEEP]

[AUDIO LOGO]

OK, we are back. Joe’s back. Busta Rhymes is back. “Popcast” first. A live wire transfer sent mid-episode. [MONEY CHA-CHING]

Salute to that person. Congratulations on getting paid on time.

Let’s finish. Let’s finish. I am going through hell right now.

Home stretch.

You know, like the day your shit drops, it’s a lot you gotta do.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You’re feeling stressed?

I’m not able to do none of it, because I’m here.

Well, this is part of the promotion.

I know. I completely understand. I’m excited about it. I just got to get to the other side of the work, though, too.

What are the other things?

They busting my ass right now.

What do they want from you?

I mean, it’s a lot of shit. It ain’t even worth getting into right now. We going to be here longer.

All right, let’s finish. Let’s hit the home stretch.

Last thing, you have been on, obviously, hundreds of songs, thousands maybe. What is the art of talking your way onto someone else’s record? Not just having them come on yours and not just getting a phone call that says, we need a Busta 16, but to go into someone else’s studio that didn’t even know that you were next door, and then you’d be like, I should be on this, I want to be on this, how can I be on this? Tell me the art of that.

There really isn’t an art to it. It’s just being comfortable enough to go in somebody’s session, and if you like something, you’re just soliciting yourself. Because a lot of the times, you’re not on everyone’s mind. It’s like, fuck that. It’s almost like you’re not going in there to negotiate it.

You know what I’m saying? Once motherfuckers see that I’m interested, they always want to at least hear what I’m going to bring to the table, because people that I’m always going to deliver something special, at least 99.9 percent of the time. There’s been moments where that has worked against me. You know, you steal the show, and then the motherfucker knows that, because you might have got the better moment in that song. It’s almost like the song becomes your song.

When was the last time that happened?

There’s a record that didn’t come out, because the manager reached out. They didn’t ask me to be on the song.

OK.

I solicited myself.

All right.

So what ended up happening was I pay attention to the conversations. And if I don’t hear my name coming up enough in the conversation, I pay attention to who they think is or who they’re saying is. And I just research who out of those names has a record out that’s crazy right now, and I’ll jump on the record and put a verse on it, and I’ll send it.

You’ll just unprompted on the speck?

Yeah, I’ll send it to the management team, or I’ll reach out to the artist myself. The communication will start one way. Maybe after a few days or a couple of weeks, the call comes back and goes, yo, Bust. What up, bro? I’m like —

Can’t steal a boy’s shine like that, man.

Too much aura.

Thanks, but no thanks.

But it’s interesting, because the song ain’t come out. So whoever heard it in the immediate circle or wherever they chose to play it, it must have didn’t pan out.

You going to name names, or you’re not going to name names? You’re not going to embarrass anybody?

Nah, I don’t want to embarrass anyone. I will say, to me, the lesson of this is here you are, 30 plus years into your career, still advocating for yourself, still saying, I have something to offer, I can add value to this. And even if you’re not — like you said, you’re not on everyone’s mind. I think people think that is the endpoint. But you’re saying, I may not be on your mind, but what if I was? What if I can present something to you? I think a lot of artists are maybe too prideful to do that, to advocate for themselves.

Believe it or not, a lot of artists do, though, solicit themselves and advocate for themselves.

Really?

Yeah. A lot of motherfuckers do it because it’s also a tool that motherfuckers use to keep theyself hot. The only difference is they don’t necessarily go through the proper protocol. They’ll just rhyme on your shit and leak it.

Plenty of that.

You know what I’m saying?

And then sometimes, it takes off, and they have to put it out.

Sometimes it does, yeah. You know what I’m saying?

Let’s hit some questions in the lightning round. Busta Rhymes, we got the “Popcast” deck here. 52 cards, allegedly, in this deck. Every card corresponds to a pre-written question.

I feel like people have walked off with cards.

Yeah, we think people might have stolen some cards.

We might be at 49 right now.

Yeah.

Who can say? Who can say?

Pluck a card at random, show the camera what you got, and Jon will ask you what comes up. What do we got? 10 of clubs.

OK. When is the last time that something did not go your way career wise, and how did you cope with it?

The 11-year process to record “Extinction Level Event 2,” I did not like the time lost in making that project, and I didn’t like the situations that were being presented to me when I was trying to figure out where I was going to release that project. But I just didn’t like the business that was being presented to me for this project. And what I wanted this project to do and who was on it with Kendrick, and the honorable minister Louis Farrakhan and Rick Ross and Mary J. Blige and Mariah and Anderson .Paak and Rakim.

Rakim, yeah.

Like, this album, it was supposed to be handled with a certain level of care. It was my first part 2 sequel in my whole career, and I definitely didn’t want it to be treated any less of a priority the way the first “Extinction Level Event” was treated. That time probably was the time that was one of the most challenging, because my patience was tested probably in the most extreme fashion in my whole career.

And how was that like? How did you cope with that? How did you wake up every day and say, is this another day where these jokers are going to keep testing my patience? And then how do I keep being creative, productive, emotionally present?

Nothing stops you from being creative. That’s the therapeutic part, just always being able to work on the studio and keep cooking. And I just wanted the right support system that I knew was going to care for that particular project because of how much time and work and patience and money, because that whole shit was out of my pocket.

Yeah.

Because it was just like, yo, went through 11 years of fucking saying no to this and saying no to that, saying no to this, and then the dopest shit, finally, presents itself, because it came out on October 30, 2020. And then everything is closed.

Right.

It’s fucking crazy.

It wasn’t meant to be.

It wasn’t meant to be in the way that an ideal dream come true situation for that album would have been preferred to happen.

All right, pull another card. We’ll do three in all.

Cool. Eight of clubs.

Oh, eight of spades.

Spades, yeah.

Eight of spades.

Spades.

OK. What always makes you laugh?

A funny motherfuckin’ joke.

What kind of joke do you think is funny?

No, that’s it.

No, no, I want to know. You like a long wind up?

That is the answer.

You like potty humor? What are we talking about? You like wordplay?

There’s no category for this shit. If the shit is funny, it’s going to make you laugh. Motherfucker’s say shit that ain’t funny, but they still consider it a joke to them. And that don’t make me laugh. If shit ain’t funny, it ain’t funny, man.

Many such cases. Many such cases. Incredible. OK, next card.

You cracked the question.

That’s incredible. That was beautiful. All right, ace of clubs. Actually, a good question, because you’ve been doing this for so many years. What are you good at besides what you do for a living?

I’m serious when it comes to making some incredible breakfast.

Mmm, now we’re talking.

You know what I’m saying?

All right. What do you got? Chef it up.

Yeah, what’s a brunch spread at the Busta Rhymes’ condo look like?

Just the regular breakfast shit. You know what I’m saying? Some eggs, pancakes, waffles, shit like that, because I had to do it for myself. I had to do it for my kids, because I’m not a big cook. Like, I’m not the illest with — you know, like, you looking for steaks and shit like that? That ain’t —

Not on the grill, but you could do breakfast.

No, no, we on the grill for burgers and shit like that. But like, if you talking about cooking a real steak for dinner and potatoes and vegetables and all of that type of shit, I’ll leave that to the queen to do. I’ll leave that to the queen or to the matriarch of the family, which is Ma Dukes. That’s the ultimate royal empress. Let I’ll let them be the specialist in that space.

But you can do breakfast?

I’m pretty nice and pretty dangerous when it come to that breakfast shit.

All right, speaking of food, Busta Rhymes, every episode of podcast ends with a snack. You have the distinct honor of being the first person to say, no, thank you. I don’t like snacks.

There’s scrambled eggs potato chips over here.

If you’re so into breakfast.

You turned down our snack. Jon and I are going to eat a snack.

Scramble egg potato chips.

Because this is tradition. So Jon and I are going to eat a snack. What kind of snack do you think we should eat?

I don’t know. What you got over there?

All right, we’re eating scrambled eggs potato chips.

I’m just saying, we’ll eat it.

Yeah, OK.

I mean, you can absolutely do your thing.

We intend to.

I refuse to engage.

Can you explain why?

I just don’t trust shit that’s in those bags premade by any companies.

You eat no packaged food?

When I was younger, yeah, all day. I just ain’t a fan of that shit now. Like, I’ve had a bag of chips probably in the last year or two.

You had one bag of chips?

Probably. Some undetectable shit might be crawling around in the bag, bro.

OK. Like a bug?

Whatever the thing may be, you know what I’m saying?

You don’t even wanna smell these? You don’t even wanna smell these?

Come on, give me the bag. You won’t smell?

No, no, I’m cool.

All right. Here’s what we’re working. We’re working with scrambled eggs potato chips.

I got them from a Japanese spot.

With the Naruto — with the Naruto bag.

Yeah, the Naruto bag.

You like any anime? You an anime guy?

I’m definitely a fan of the anime.

This is a Naruto snack.

There’s two things you love — anime and breakfast. Choji approved.

And yet, still will not engage. That’s OK. We’re going to have it anyway.

I do not like a scrambled egg chip in general. Yes, I have had a scrambled egg chip before.

As have I.

But not this brand.

I never heard of that shit.

Oh, this is kind of good though. It’s buttery.

It is buttery.

It’s a little sweet. It’s less eggy.

That’s what I’m saying, it feels dessert-like.

You know what I’m talking about?

It feels dessert-like. It doesn’t feel savory. It feels dessert-like, which is, like, sweet dessert.

OK, interesting. All right, we got potato, palm oil, compound seasoning, flavoring agent.

Definitely got some MSG.

I’m not saying it’s good for you. I’m just saying it’s good for the show.

This is not the health portion of the show.

I do want to say, it doesn’t advertise as sweet. Like, you wouldn’t look at the bag and think, that’s a sweet chip, but it is actually a sweet chip. It’s a seven and a half.

We’ll rank it out of 10.

It’s a 7 and 1/2.

It’s a solid 7 and 1/2.

It’s a solid 7 and 1/2.

Way better than I thought it was going to be.

It doesn’t have the crunch that I really love. It’s not quite as crispy as I would like, but it is sweet. It does have — maybe it’s anime. Maybe there’s a brightness to the anime. I don’t know.

Not tempting at all?

Incredible.

Yeah, I’m so past this part of this.

All right, that’s it.

The snack shit is crazy.

Good thing it’s the end.

The egg potato chip really swung it out of the ballpark for me to not want to try it.

OK, well, we appreciate you being game to watch us try the egg potato chip. Busta Rhymes, thank you for being on “Popcast.”

Thank you for having me, man.

Privilege to have you here.

Real dope, real dope experience.

Every episode of “Popcast” is at nytimes.com/popcast. We are on YouTube, of course. Like and subscribe youtube.com/popcast. Instagram, TikTok, you know where to find us.

[MUSIC PLAYING]