Busta Rhymes: "His Death Stopped My Career!" Busta Rhymes Finally Opens Up About His Grief, Nearly Dying & How He Turned His Life Around!
Guests: Busta
Full transcript · Read the full conversation in order, with its original context.
§01Transcript — part 1
This is the Busta Rhymes that none of us have ever seen before. Busta Rhymes says it himself, this is a Busta Rhymes that nobody's ever seen before. You will walk away from this conversation understanding not only what it takes to reach the very peak of your powers, but to stay there for 33 years, to have the insane consistency, discipline, dedication, and in his words, addiction to something that will take you to the very top. But then also you'll see the forces in life that take you from that peak to the deepest depths of darkness.
And once you're in that darkness... How do you rise from it? How did Buster take himself from the darkest moment of his life that he's really not talked about ever before back to the peak of his powers? This is a human story. It's one of the most inspiring stories we've ever had on this show. And it's a side of a guy that we've known for many, many decades that I have never seen before. Buster, sometimes I think that with maturity and with age, we're able to look back at our earliest years and connect dots that only our maturity and only our own growth and development allow us to connect.
And those dots sometimes indicate to us why and how we became the person we are today. And that's really what I'm so compelled to understand with you is what is that early context that you look back on now when you go, the reason I am the man I am today sat here is because of this early context and these things and these people. What is that? Honestly, I have to say it starts with my mother and my father. My mother and my father was strict. You know what I'm saying?
And they also made sure that I didn't need for nothing. I was able to really enjoy what it was to be a child. I don't have to sit here and mislead people. I come from some poor struggle and I come from this hood shit. Yeah, I was in the hood. I was in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, and I was in the hood with enough of the goons and the hooligans, but the difference about our era and the way you mostly hear artists try to portray it now is even the guys that was the goons and the gangsters and the troublemakers in the street, they had respect and they had integrity and they understood what it was to have proper manners.
Like if my mother as serious as she was, saw any of the other kids in the street. It was like, I'm giving you an example of how it really literally took a village to raise a child. Like none of the neighbors on the block would see another child that they watched grow from a little boy into becoming a teenager or something and see that kid misbehaving and not reprimand him in the street, even if they not his parent. So, my neighbors had permission to bust my ass if I was misbehaving.
And then they would tell my mother. And if my mother felt like I misrepresented her to make another neighbor have to discipline me, that was going to get me another ass beating. So you ended up getting two ass beatings for every one trouble that you caused. You know what I'm saying? And that shit was important because I think that as a community, That shit is something that's, it doesn't exist anymore. You can't tell nobody else kid nothing. Kids ain't trying to listen to you tell them nothing.
They'll lift up something and fling it after you or go upside your head and disrespect you because there's just a totally different value in the way things are done in the community. So it starts with my parents. And the way I was raised in the house to have respect for my parents, have respect for my other elders, even if you wasn't my parent. And also, even if you was dudes that was in the street, you still an elder, we had to respect you as an elder.
In return, that same respect that came from the house, and whenever you went abroad and you conducted yourself in that manner, it would garnish the same respect in return. So even if it was a dude in the street on some street shit, The respect that you showed to that elder still warranted a certain respect from them. They wouldn't disrespect the respect that you was raised in your house to have for your family and for them. So that respect was upheld and it was that that integrity was defended and.
That was a real solid foundation that all of the other floors was built on, which eventually evolved into becoming a skyscraper for me. So I'm going to start there with the kids and I'm going to go to the neighborhood because, again, when my parents was around, I got the same discipline from the neighbors. the hardworking middle-class families, the less fortunate families that were still in the neighborhood, we all was on the same accord about discipline and respect.
Was it easy to see when you look back how you could have gone another way in that context? Absolutely, because all of those things were still there. The drug dealing was still there. The shootings were still happening. The robberies were still happening. All of that was there, right? But the beautiful thing was there was a serious presence of balance that was just as impressionable as all of the things that was the negative presence that was strong and that did get a stronghold on a lot of the youth in the community at the time too.
How come you didn't go the other way? I did, I did. I just was fortunate enough to have something like hip hop that was able to be an alternative that saved my life, changed my life. And I had some incredible people that was around me to support me when I found this interest and I identified with my gift as an artist to be able to entertain people, perform, articulate my thoughts through song and rhyme form. And I had an incredible support system with my moms.
I had an incredible support system with just the other friends and family that I grew up with that was in the community. And then last but not least, the determination that I had to wanna be able to not disappoint the people that I knew that really was proud of what I was doing, good, bad or indifferent. It was all of them. All of them. So for example, I pissed my moms off when I decided I wanted to start selling weed and selling crack, right? And the guys that was in the street that I was doing it with, when they realized, even though I was doing it and it was cool for us to do it, they didn't really want us to do it.
When they started to see that we had potential to do other things that was gonna keep us safe and keep us away from the street, A lot of the time they didn't have a better opportunity to offer us. So they made sure that they was as present as they could be to guide us through the shit that they didn't even want us to do in the first place, which was the stupidness we was carrying on within the street. So they did everything they could to minimize the bullshit that we would get into so we don't get killed, so we don't go to jail, so none of that shit would happen.
But once they realized they didn't have a better opportunity for us, that is what they felt was the best that they could do. If we're gonna do the bullshit, we gotta be there to protect them and make sure that they straight and we guide them so that they could do it the best way with the least amount of bullshit. As a younger. As a younger kid, right? When they started to see that this rapping thing and this hip hop shit and break dancing and graffiti and DJing and all of that shit was something that we started to generate interest for.
that's when they started to encourage us to do that more. Instead of cracking. Instead of selling the drugs, instead of selling weed, instead of stealing this and taking that. And so they were so happy to see we found another way. They wanted us to do that. So the more we did that, if we started to show them any indication as we was making progress that we wasn't continuing to be productive, Now it felt like you was pissing off two sets of parents.
I'm already pissing off my parents because I'm with them in the street. Now they see me doing this music shit. They like that shit. They proud of me. So if I'm not doing well in that, now I'm disappointing them too. What was the consequence of your parents separating at 11 years old? Because I think about me being 11 years old. I remember a conversation with my mum. My mum's Nigerian. I was born in Botswana. My dad's English. I remember around that age, about 10 years old, my parents calling me in and basically telling me they didn't love each other anymore.
And it was like the world had broken in half. Yeah. You can't comprehend the concept of these two people being separate. It's like being torn into two pieces. How was it for you at 11 years old when you find that out? It was disastrous for me because, like you said, you can't really ever wrap your head around that. As a child, you don't know how to conceptualize that. Obviously, there was things that I was able to do and there was enjoyment I was able to have when I spent time with my father that I couldn't get when I was with my mother.
There was things that I was always able to get as far as nurturing and being cared for and being babied for my mother that I couldn't get from my father. And obviously divine order is mother and father to make baby, right? So I definitely didn't wanna lose neither one of them. Did you change? I definitely changed because I wasn't, I couldn't figure out how to find my, the behave kid that I was, even though I was still getting into shit, The bullshit really started once my mother and my father got a divorce.
The misbehaving really started picking up. The disrespect started to pick up and intensify. The anger was just a lot more. Why? It overwhelmed me more because I wasn't happy with my situation. And then I wasn't happy with the way that I was directly impacted by their beef. So like... You know, there would be times when, if my mother and my father wasn't getting along, fresh discrepancy between the two of them, say like the day when my father supposed to pick up me and my brother, cause I only got one younger brother, and say he supposed to come and pick us up on this day, and particularly for his visitation weekend.
If an argument started with the two of them that morning, You know, my father would get to the house and then my mother wouldn't even let us go. And we would look and see him in the front of the house from the window. And my moms would just be on some bullshit. How did you feel looking at him from the window? It was fucking crazy. You wanted to go, I'm guessing. Of course. You know what I'm saying? Because there was things and there was other family that obviously was on my father's side.
Cousins and kids from the neighborhoods of the cousins part of Brooklyn or Queens. Different areas of New York that we would go, that we had friends and friends. with the family and with the neighborhood friends that we met through our other family and other cousins and things of that nature in the different neighborhoods. We wouldn't get to see these people until dad came to get us because moms wasn't cool really with that side of the family like that.
My father's side of the family wasn't really rocking with my mother's side of the family like that. So if that rotation didn't happen in the visits, We didn't get to enjoy that. We missed our dad. We was only getting the opportunity to see him, you know, once a week, once every two weeks, or sometimes once a month, if they beefing with each other. Did your relationship with your father at that point kind of become a bit astrayened when, because of that beef, did you start to see him less and less and less?
Yeah, I think my conflict with my father, it started to happen more and more because, you know, obviously, The lack of a parent's presence has an effect in different ways, right? And as a son, I don't know what it is, but I just think instinctually, boys cling on to their moms more. I don't know if that's always the case, but in most cases, that's usually what it is. I think my father's personality is... was a little conflicting for me with the way my personality was.
And the contrast of my father's personality as opposed to my mother's personality, it drew conflict for me too. Because my father, he wasn't as interested in the shit that I wanted to do or that the shit that I was interested in as a child. Like he always was more serious about Whatever he felt was best for my future was all that mattered. It wasn't about what I thought. It was about what he thought. So I always started to feel like in having the comparison and seeing the contrast between that and how supportive my mother was for the shit that I wanted to do.
Like, you know, first time I got some pussy, I could come tell my mother. I could sit down and tell my mother about... how that felt, you know what I'm saying? I could sit and tell my moms about, you know, my first wet dream or some shit. I could talk to my moms about the music that I'm making in the studio with, with my crew, leaders of the new school at the time, and I could come home and I could play that shit in the house. I could turn up the shit.
Just as long as I could do, just as long as I did what I was supposed to in the house. My mother was with all the other shit. As long as it was productive, And it kept me away from the trouble in the street. That was relieving for her. My father, you tried to talk to him at the time about some rap shit. He was like, I don't want to hear that shit. That shit is a bunch of bullshit. And you wasting your time with that shit. That's how I used to talk.
You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? Now at that time I didn't respect it. And at that time I felt a way, I felt real fucked up about that because it was just like, I could be doing some real bullshit. Like I'm actually still one foot in because I'm not, I haven't succeeded at this. This shit don't make me no money. I do this shit cause I love it. Like I just love it. When I'm able to do shit that I love with my friends that and with my people that I'm entertained by doing it with them.
It's because I have this thing with a crew that there's a collective thing. enjoyment that we're getting from doing this music shit. Are you still trying to prove him wrong to some degree? Did you find yourself trying to prove him wrong then? Nah, because I got my opportunity to do it. But before that moment- At that time? Yeah, yeah. Absolutely, I was trying to prove him wrong. I was so determined to prove him wrong that it forced me to excel. Because the more that he wanted me to do what he wanted me to do.
Which was? My father was a licensed electrical contractor. Okay, okay. So he used to force me to come to work. His way of keeping me off the street was bringing me to work with him because he had his own company as a licensed electrical contractor. Okay. How'd you feel about that? I was disgusted with that shit because we working in these nasty fucking buildings with rats and roaches running around and shit. And it took childhood time for me because I wasn't able to be outside and play.
That's really what I wanted to do. And how old were you then? 12? It started a little younger than that, but right around 12 is when it got serious. I would say like around 10 years old was when it started. 12 is when it got serious because my mother used to send us to different countries every so on. With my father, just so we could be able to explore what it was like to live in Jamaica for a summer with the family. Same shit with England. My mother would send us to England.
So when I was around, there was one summer we came out here- You were 10. I was like 10, 11. My brother was younger than me, like seven. I'm staying in Morecambe time and Preston. We went to karate school here, we went to primary school here, and we was break dancing, and I had these cousins that used to name Samantha and Michaela, they used to take me in vowel, they used to take me to, these little clubs, cause they used to bring us to like this little area where it was like a, I wouldn't call it a downtown area, but there was an area like a downtown area in the Morecambe area and in the Preston area and in the Blackpool area.
And we would go and we would break dance out there with the young kids that was from England. You know, we had our style of doing shit from New York and we was some dangerous little motherfuckers now. You know, we was getting busy. We was making it happen. You know, we're twisting up and popping and all of this shit. So it was something where we just became a part of this break dance community and they was always looking forward to seeing us. We would go out there like three, four times a week.
Other people, promoters, they would see us. They started to book us to come in their clubs. Obviously we're too young to go in the club. So they would let us come perform 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and then we would have to leave immediately. So we made a little money that way, get a little 10 pounds here for a show, a little 20 pounds there for a show. But these are the things that we grew around. So when I was around all of this and that started to slow down, dad was like, okay, y'all ain't going nowhere this summer.
You're coming to work. Do I want to go to work? No. Do I want to be an electrician? No. No. Do I wanna be fuckin' pulling BX cable through sheet rock? No. Do I wanna be hammering nails and then bang my finger? No. Do I wanna see rats and fuckin' roaches crawling over my shoes and my Timbaland boots? And I don't wanna do none of that. And I'm watching kids riding up and down and pop a wheelie in on the bike and music playing outside and I can't do that shit.
I used to be super angry at that shit every day with my father. What did you want to do instead? I wanted to rap. I wanted to make music. I wanted to break dance. I wanted to do all the shit that hip hop consisted of. Like I became the embodiment of hip hop and it was the thing that was my excuse to not go to work. Why did you want to rap? Well, number one, I wanted to be the DJ first. You know what I'm saying? The DJ thing to me though, I never really got good at it to be the DJ.
I was able to do it, but I was never nice enough to become the superstar DJ. And at that time, the DJ was super important because all of the groups had the DJ name. So the Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Jam Master J Run DMC, like the DJ was always the solo, it was like he was the big shot. So when I couldn't, I'm not really the technology dude, you know what I'm saying? Equipment shit, like it was just a little complicated for me. And then I actually became an MC by accident.
And the interesting part about that was, I caught two charges selling crack by the time I was 12. And fortunately, the laws was different, and I was a minor. So I didn't see no serious trouble, but I was definitely on my way to getting into some serious trouble. If my mother didn't say, all right, enough of this shit, we gotta get you outta here. That's when she took me from Brooklyn and brought me to Long Island. When I got to Long Island, that's when I met Brown, C. Brown from Leaders of the New School, Dinko D from Leaders of the New School.
Milo was my mother's sister's son, so he's my first blood cousin. But before we brought in Milo, it was, and even before we brought in Dinko, it was me, Dinko, and another dude named Mystery. Mystery was hustling in the street too. But when we went to Long Island now, a lot of other families was Dinko like my mother. They brought their kids from Brooklyn to Long Island, from Queens to Long Island, from the Bronx to Long Island. So we left the neighborhood, which is the hood we was raised in, we left the hood to come to the suburbs and still be around a bunch of kids from the hood.
You know what I'm saying? So the same shit you was running from, we found a way to do the same shit in these nice neighborhoods now. And here we come as the generation terrorizing these beautiful neighborhoods. And we fucked these neighborhoods up. When you say you became an accidental MC. This is what happened. I wasn't rapping yet. I was only break dancing. I was only popping and I was DJing a little bit. And I was messing around with the graffiti.
I wasn't rapping yet. So when I moved to Long Island, I meet Charlie Brown. I meet Mystery. And what ends up happening is in this junior high school now, they got like these lip sync contests, they got rap contests and We now finally getting a chance to experience what it's like to be in school where you have periods, different periods in classes. You're in one class for 45 minutes to an hour and then the bell ringing and you switch. I got the hallway action, everybody talking shit.
Go to the next class, flirt with a couple of chicks on the way to the next class. So all of that interaction is starting now. Puberty kicking in crazy. You're 13 years old, 12, 13 now. You're starting to get your hormones just moving different. So... Obviously you're going through the stage in your life now where you want to impress everybody. You want to be the cool guy in school. So whenever you came to Long Island from the five boroughs It was a thing.
Oh, that's the new kid from Brooklyn. Oh, that's the new kid from Queens. Oh, that's the new kid from Bronx. That's the new kid from Staten Island. So me being one of the new kids from Brooklyn, it created this talk. And the rapping thing is happening. Charlie Brown was like the guy. He was like the, the number one rap dude in school at the time. So one day I'm coming out of the school and we get in the schoolyard and some of the kids waiting on the school buses, some of the kids is waiting to see the football game or the basketball game after school.
There was like a cypher that was formed in this particular day and it was a big one. And it was C Brown rapping and two other kids and then C Brown was getting most of the shine. I walks over to the cypher and I started beatboxing. And Brown, he doing his rap shit to my beatbox or whatever. And I'm keeping the beat going for him. And then everything was smooth in the beginning. He was just rhyming, everything was cool and he sounded good. And then I probably like a good 30, 40 seconds into it, he just started disrespecting me.
So I'm beatboxing for him and he dissing me and I'm kind of like torn between, should I punch this dude in his face or should I just keep beatboxing and not be the party pooper of the party energy that we have in here? And you're how old? I was 12, I was 13 now. And I'm saying to myself, I'm from Brooklyn. And the mentality back then was everybody from Long Island was pussy. You know, it's the suburbs, it's the green grass, it's the flower beds, it's the nice houses.
We come from concrete jungle, we come from projects, we come from struggle. So, I'm looking at this dude and I'm just looking at him like, I'm going to fuck you up in two seconds because you a pussy to me, but you're disrespecting me in front of all of these people. And if I don't do something, then they're going to look at me like I'm a pussy too. So as I'm getting ready to do something stupid, the rhyme stopped. Like he was done and... Everybody was bigging him up and, you know, I ain't want to look like a sore loser, even though there was no battle.
He just chose to diss me for no reason. And I couldn't understand it because I'm like, yo, I'm here to support you right now. I'm giving you the beat and the whole shit. The fuck you doing? Long story short, that was the day. I said, all right, I'm going to go home. And I'm going to write a rhyme tonight. And I'm going to come back tomorrow. And I'm going to fucking disrespect this youth in front of everybody. The same way he dissed me up in front of everybody.
And the next day, I came to school. I waited all day. I ain't telling nobody shit. We got back in that same yard. Nice big crowd the next day. He rhyming again, I started beatboxing for him again. Like, it's the exact thing happening like the day before. So we going and I'm doing what I'm doing and everything is cool and nobody ain't got no clue because I didn't say shit to nobody about having raps ready. And the crazy shit is when I wrote my rhymes, I was listening to a bunch of LL Cool J shit because at the time, LL was battling everybody on record.
You know what I'm saying? He's battling Kumo D, battling Ice-T, battling, you know, he was the one that was trying to take everybody's head off. And I was like, yo, I want to come like LL so I can tear this boy head off. So I ended up doing my shit. And somehow it went from me beatboxing to him. And for him, to me telling him, yo, why don't you do a beat for me? And he was like, oh, you got raps ready today? I'm like, just do a beat. Let me just try something.
So he did the beat. And I started off the rhyme on some calm shit. And then when I started to get into the disrespect lines, that's when the whole thing just started to happen on its own. Like, My frustration and then me seeing the people reacting to my shit the way that I wanted them to, it just made me more confident, more cocky, more charismatic. And that's when the whole Busta Rhymes thing started to happen. And my name wasn't even Busta Rhymes at the time.
I had a fucked up rap name at the time. I'm sorry. What was it? Yo, my name was terrible. Yo, my name at the time, I had two. I had my name from being a part of the 5% Nation of the Gods on Earth, which that name was Kula. That was Lord Tahane, right? But somehow I abandoned that to become... like the rappers that had three part names, right? Is there a reason you're not telling me? I'm getting to it. I'm just trying to help with, I'm setting it up with the proper prerequisite.
So LL Cool J is a three part name. Jam Master J is a three part name. All of the guys from the Fat Boys, Prince Marky D, Cool Rock Ski, them dudes had three part names, right? I changed my name to Chill O' Ski. That name is so fucking terrible. I know. I'm sorry, bro. Name is terrible. And you know what's so crazy? I kept that name for a long time because I really thought it was the shit because I felt like... Chill O Ski. Chill O Ski, bro. Terrible.
I know. It's terrible. But I really was proud of like... I got a three-part name, like my favorites. Yeah. And if you wanna be like your favorites, you gotta do the shit that is a replication of your favorites. And then I destroyed Charlie Brown so bad that at the end of that night, the end of that little battle that afternoon after school, he just came over to the side and was like, yo, we should be in a group together. And that's really the day that, I guess, Busta Rhymes, I guess it's a catalyst moment, the day Busta was born.
You talked about how that kind of moment helped you develop your style and your charisma and the way you carried yourself. And from then till when you get signed at 17 years old, I'm curious about what happens in that moment, because that's really, you know... A lot of people at 12 years old or 10 years old or whatever wanna be hip hop actors, hip hop stars, or they wanna be whatever, they wanna be musicians, but very, very few make it to the top table.
What happens between the playground that day and 17 years old, you getting signed? When you look back and go, it was for that reason. Was it natural talent? Is it hard work? Is it all of the above? It's all of the above, but the first thing for me was the addiction to the reaction that I was getting from the people and I was seeing it and how it felt in real time. And just looking at the fact that I came up with something in my crib, by myself, in my bedroom, that was fueled by a determination of wanting to defend myself like a fight.
And a lot of the times, I don't think I might've said it like this. I've said it before, but I don't think I've said it a lot. I don't know if it would have been, I had the same desire to wanna be in hip hop. I had the same desire to wanna rhyme, DJ, but I don't know if that moment didn't happen. I don't know if I would have pursued being an MC At that time, it probably wouldn't have happened. I've sat here with a lot of people who are comedians and entertainers and actors in the biggest movies in the world.
And it's so interesting to me that there tends to be an early catalyst moment where they perform maybe in front of the family at Christmas or on stage or whatever it is. And they get this reaction. And in that moment, that reaction does something to them on a psychological level, which becomes, as the word you used is the word I hear, becomes this addiction. And I often wonder to myself, what? Because a lot of other people will experience that reaction and not develop the addiction.
So the reaction, it appears to me, is doing something for those people that they needed at that moment. Yes, I needed it at that moment. I want to tell you something. It actually happened before that. To want to be an MC happened in that moment. The addiction to entertaining people, that shit happened when I was like seven, eight years old. Maybe even six years old because where it started for me initially was, you know, at the time, and particularly like I was saying how the neighborhood was back then and how we was raised in our house back then, my mother and my father, you know, we had to go to bed at nine o'clock on a school night.
On the weekends, when we was that young, we might be able to stay up until about 10 o'clock, but we still had to go to bed by a certain time. When my mother had company, like my father, and they had family and friends, or they just had their little grown-up get-togethers, and they get to drinking a little bit, sometimes they're so entertained by each other's company, they forget to send us to bed at nine o'clock. They playing music and shit. And I used to have to do things, I would try to creatively come up with ways to avoid being sent to bed at nine o'clock.
So when they playing music, the first thing that I would always get into doing is reenactments of Michael Jackson and from the Jackson Five, and James Brown dance routines. So I used to do that shit and I was nice with the fucking split and spinning around and shit. And just carrying on. I'm doing all types of shit. And I'm doing it for hours until I literally would be sweating through my clothes. But it was so entertaining that sometimes the whole company that was there for my family, my mother and my father, they ended up cheering me on and rooting me on to continue and bigging up my mom's about how much talent her son has.
Was it not that feeling then that you were changing? That's what it was first. That's what I was saying. Like I wasn't thinking about being no rapper then, but I knew what that feeling felt like. And I always wanted that feeling. And that feeling started in the crib and then it translated into me trying to get that attention in the classrooms, which turned me into a jokester in the class. So I would do shit to get the attention of the crowd from the class and became like this class clown dude and I would get in trouble and shit.
§02Transcript — part 2
And then it translated from that into me break dancing and doing all of this hip hop shit because I loved hip hop and I was starting to see what was being created as a movement and what was being generated as an interest that was taken over. Like it didn't matter what else was cool at the time when hip hop started to really become that shit. There was nothing more important than knowing how to do something that was a representation of hip hop. If you was a graffiti artist and you was fucking dope, you became something that was like on a celebrity status level.
That's when motherfuckers started putting graffiti on clothes. And everybody that was involved with hip-hop or some kind of representation of hip-hop became some sort of celebrity. So for me, that's why I wanted to learn how to do everything in hip-hop. Because I still didn't know what I wanted to do. The DJ shit, complicated. The breakdancing shit, I ain't like the fucking bruises I was getting all the time. You know what I'm saying? And... The graffiti shit, I was cool with it, but it was really when that situation happened with me and C. Brown, that's now when I found that I was able to get the feeling of when I was this little boy dancing for my parents and they company.
And at the same time, I was able to have that spotlight on me being the rapper guy. So it's like all of this shit became the thing that I started to grow. not only this appreciation for it, but I started to grow addicted to the shit. That is what I was expecting in terms of like, I was just trying to figure out the psychological reason why you became so addicted to this. Cause listen, I come from a background where lots of my friends started rapping and most of them fell off.
And then there's like one or two of them that just became like their medication. And I've always wondered why they just like that individual just stuck at it for all those years. But in that, in that answer we have the- I think the biggest addiction for me out of all of it was to be able to say to my father, I wanted to be able to experience the day, not knowing if it would ever come, but it was a serious, serious thing. Like I used to write this shit on my wall and just on a piece of paper, and I would stick it on the wall.
And it would say one day, I'm going to get a deal, I'm gonna sign a contract, I'm gonna come home with so much fucking money that I'm gonna be able to tell my father I told you so. That's all I wanted to be able to do. And I wrote that shit and put it on the wall. And I would look at that shit every day. And there would be days still when he would tell me I gotta come to work. And I would look at that sign and then I would see him outside in the truck and I walk out that fucking house and I would be mad as hell.
Angry. And what I do love about my father as I got older is I understood what he wanted, he just wanted to make sure I wasn't wasting my time. He built this company. He wanted to pass it down. It was love. It's love. It was, he need his son to succeed. I'm his pride and his joy. And failure is not an option with my father. And I guess where he came from, You know, it's the same with my mother. My mother, when I told her at 18, I wasn't going to university, wouldn't speak to me for years.
But she comes from Nigeria. She left school at seven years old. She can't read or write today. Wow. So I was the only of her four kids. I was the only one that says, I'm not going to university. Right. Now she stood in my way and said, don't start a business, et cetera, et cetera. But in my maturity, I go, she stood in my way because she loved me. Absolutely. At the time. And everyone goes, a lot of people go through, especially sort of immigrant kids and stuff.
Us primarily. Yeah. Yeah. Because that pain and that struggle, that suffering that they come from, that shit ain't no, that's not this shit that we was raised in. That, you know, me and you, we obviously, even if you was born there, you wasn't, you didn't spend your years there to experience the pain that they did. So you come here now, you still don't know they struggle. They know though, they never gonna forget. And they obviously want the best for they babies, man.
My father came to the Apollo to see us. And this is what made him even more sure about disrespecting me and disrespecting the rap shit. Me and my crew, leaders of the new school, we had an opportunity to perform at the Apollo at amateur night at the Apollo. And we get up there and we got booed. Badly booed. One of the first times, you know, when me and Charlie Brown decided to form the group, the guy, Mystery, that was with us originally, he got tired of the wait.
There was no real light at the end of the tunnel if we was gonna get an opportunity to get a record deal. He was selling drugs in the street too. He decided he wanted to go back to the street and do that. He ain't wanna be in a rap group no more. That's how Rune was made for Dinko to get in the group. Cause we still felt like we needed to replace the third rapper. We got our three rap dudes now, it's me, Brown and Dinko, and then I said, yo, we need a DJ, let me get my cousin.
So Milo came and we ended up doing the show at the Apollo. Got booed and my father was even, he was hitting me with the I told you so that night. See, I tell you, yo, where's the time with this little idiot rapper boy shit for come on work. That's what I'm gonna tell you, for come to work so you can learn some stability. Stop wasting your time with this rapper shit. He said, how you talking to me? We still in the venue. Really? We didn't even leave.
He just beating me in the head with just total disrespect. But again, at that time, I hated him for it as we got older. And that day came for me. I got my record deal when I was 17. And. What was it about you though? Was it, was it the, was it the unique style? And you had a completely different flow that people were just drawn to that raised the energy on every record you touched. It definitely was that. And that came completely from dance hall influence.
Right? So, Are you familiar with like Sting? Yeah. So Sting clashes that used to happen from the 80s all the way down. The one thing that I saw in dancehall culture that I wasn't seeing in hip hop was the way when dancehall artists was getting busy and clashing in front of 10, 15,000 people in that Sting audience, the energy that they had to have to make sure that they're portraying themselves in a way that was just more than the lyrics. It was a complete showmanship that was a collective of things.
It was the outfit. It was the jumping around. It was the kicking the foot. It was the flinging your hand and the way you was coming through on the microphone and the flow patterns and the cleverness of the lyrics and the punchlines. It was all of these things. And it was mind blowing to me because I wasn't seeing that same thing in hip hop. In hip hop, you seeing dudes just walking around, you know, they might hold their crutch and they act like they too cool to be that animated.
Me, I love that shit. I love Kung Fu movies. I love karate movies. So all of that shit. Hype, and the dancing up and the this and that, and the foot, this, that. I just took all of that shit, and I said, I'm gonna turn this into what I'm gonna do on these stages. And I think that if I master this shit and I could master my breathing, and I don't exhaust myself too soon, Try to jump around all over the fucking stage going crazy. I think I might become a dangerous motherfucker that's hard to compete with because dudes are not moving like this on no stage.
I'm going to all of the shows. I'm being a student. I'm in the clubs. I'm in the street. I'm everywhere just to see and learn and pull inspiration from somewhere. And I pulled a lot of inspiration from different places, but that was when I found it. Like looking at those clash, sting clashes and jammies and Kilimanjaro, like all the man from Saxon and all of that, that was out there, Tipper, Irie and all of them man. Like them dudes raised me. It's so interesting because What you've described there is kind of like my understanding of what creativity is, where you pull from so many different, almost clouds of inspiration to create a new one.
Yeah. And I was thinking about your kids. You said to me before we start recording, you got six kids and they're around like 20, 30 years old now. Based on what you now understand about what made you stand out different, what it took in terms of your mentality to use the word student there. If one of those kids comes to you now and says, dad, what are the fundamentals that I can take from your journey up until that point at, say, 21 years old, that would increase my chance of success no matter the industry?
What are those fundamentals? feel like I've been given to them, is the first thing is identify with what you love and once you love it, hone in on that thing until you can master it to the point where people can identify that there's no questioning your love for it. That's the first thing. Once you love it to the point where your actions speak louder than anything you could say about how much you love it. That is always the root of whatever success is preordained or destined to come to you, no matter what it is that you choose to do.
Because what is actually going to create the revenue is that you're not doing it from a place of trying to generate the revenue. you're gonna do this shit regardless. So it's not about the money for you. You're fulfilling something. In your soul, in your body, there's a feeling that even the money can't give you. There's people that have this money and they still can't find that feeling, man. And there's nothing like it. This is a feeling that really exists, bro.
that can actually make you the happiest person in the world. That happens to be my music because, and my children understand now, I love my children so much and I love my family so much I'm not playing with anything that I know is going to allow me the opportunity to make sure that I can show them and I can take care of them. And I can, without compromise, find a way and a means to securing of the well-being of my family. And I found something that I love that has provided me those means and the ability to do it.
And I don't have to question how I'm going to get to that on no day. I could be sick. I could be sick and in the hospital and write a song. And even if I'm too weak to say it, I could give it to somebody. and work out whatever business I need to work out with that person so they still do that same song. God willing, the success of that song that hopefully is garnished, reaches a level of success based on this creation from a feeling that I was inspired by or from a feeling that I got that I can't explain and I can't give to nobody other than through this music.
that will take care of not just my family, but it actually might take care of filling a space in the millions of people's lives that will hear this shit. That at some point, depending on the impact of the song, they fuck around and see you 20 years from now and become the fucking CEO of Google and will tell you, I am a fan. I love you. what this fucking song did for me when I was 10, now I'm 30. And at this moment, when I was 10, I remember wearing this little t-shirt with a yellow fucking balloon face on it.
And I had my little bicycle outside and my mother let me play with my two friends, two houses down. We played this fucking song 10 times in a row until we had to go inside. And that song changed my life. And it gave me the motivation to wanna do this thing, evolve into this person, think a new way that allowed me to pursue something that I found, that I love, and now I'm a fucking $200 million CEO in Google, I'm a fan of your shit, you're still doing what I love, and I wanna sit down with you and figure out something magical that we could do together.
Sounds addictive. That's very fucking addictive. Fuck that. That's the most addictive shit in the world to me. Because it's like, that's greater than man. You can't teach somebody how to do that. That's not a book science. That's not school. You know what I'm saying? That shit is, you identify with this gift. We all got the gift. This is something that we've all been blessed with. At some point, if we listen to that fucking little thing that speaks to us inside, some people call it instinct, some people call it a vibe, some people call it an energy, whatever the fuck you call it, some people call it a voice.
Whatever that thing is, bro, if it sparks the thought that changes the whole trajectory to what your life can evolve into because you took a second to listen to that shit. You are identifying with your blessing. You are identifying with your gift. And at that point, you learn what the fuck it is and become one with it and walk in your purpose, bro. So you might instill this thing into the lives of so many people that You live forever through this thing that you've created.
That's not a man thing no more. That shit is deeper than man. I am absolutely addicted to that because when you really think about it, that shit is something that's godly. It's weird to me when people find it strange when we call ourselves gods and earths, right? Because I'm saying... What do you want me to be? You want me to be other than God? Anything other than its original form is the worst state of its own existence because you're not even functioning within the nature that you was created to function in.
So you can't make me call myself devil-like because you think that it's a blasphemous act for me to say that I'm godly or I'm godlike or I'm made in the likeness of the most high. That mentality is why I function this way. Because I refuse to think that there is nothing that I can't do beyond man. Beyond man. If I could sit down here and smoke a spliff and eat a bowl of cereal and fucking go, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya. When I step up in the place, when I step correct, I say, yo, what steps correct?
Woo-ha, I got you all in check. And the whole fucking planet is doing it. It don't matter what country I go to. And then I get to Sweden and they telling me, ya, ya, ya, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I ain't from Sweden. I don't know that. I just was vibing and bugging out. The weed had me feeling a way. Nice little spliff, little food, little bowl of cereal and I just was joking in the crib and yaw, yaw, yaw, yaw, yaw. Motherfuckers was laughing in my house.
I thought it was funny. I did this shit on the record. I like funny. But I also like serious. There's always a balance between the guys that we found the most entertainment from. All of the dudes that was on TV that we liked that was the fucking criminals, they was always funny, right? Al Pacino in Scarface, he was a serious motherfucker, but he was funny. Joe Pesci in Goodfellas, serious but funny, right? We in the hood, we love the balance between serious and funny.
I try to incorporate serious and funny in all of my shit. Bottom line is my children, the fundamentals I want to give you all, find it, love it, identify with what you love, become one with that thing, pursue it to the point where you become so engulfed in it. You don't know nothing else other than that. Walk in your purpose is what it evolves into. What kind of human beings do they need to be? Character traits? All right. This is what it needs to be.
Some of it might sound fucked up. First thing is you gotta be selfish as hell. You gotta be selfish. I don't give a fuck. It's the sacrifice, but without great sacrifice and without great risk, there is no such thing as great reward. can't have one that doesn't, there's no, that math will never math. You know what I'm saying? You have to have, and I don't like this word, but I'm gonna say it because it's true. You have to be a little maniacal with the shit.
Maniac, right? That word isn't good in a lot of situations, but when you're pursuing your destiny, When you identify with your destiny, you have to be selfish, you have to be maniacal, you have to be uncompromising. And you have to move in a way when it comes to those three things, You function completely in a way where it's an unwavering faith. Like, it don't matter how fucked up that shit might look. It don't matter how much it feel like it ain't going to work.
Delusional. Complete delusion. You got to believe the delusion. Because it's only delusional until it works. So is it really delusional? Delusional. A motherfucker only gonna call it delusion until it don't work for nobody else to see, but for the whole world to see. And then once the world see it, there's nothing delusional about it. Now your delusion becomes, oh, he was a fucking genius. We didn't see it when he saw it. We didn't understand it when he did.
We thought this motherfucker was crazy. but he definitely always, he always figured this thing was the thing to do and he's stuck by that shit. When you say selfish, obviously that word has got a lot of different connotations and meanings and, but I heard from it that the selfishness is focusing on serving yourself and your dreams and your mission Like you were somewhat selfish when you said, I wanna be a rapper, even though your father is saying, I want you to come and be an electrical contractor.
That was selfish of you to say, no, I wanna take care of me first. That's selfish. I'm meaning even more extreme than that. Yes. Selfish to my father because, And in a way, I don't want to look at it as it was selfish to him. I was just on some, I don't want to do what you want to do. That's not really being selfish. That's just having a difference in opinion, right? Selfish, when I say selfish, it means my children, right? I've had to miss moments that were never going to get back.
I missed my oldest son's high school graduation. I missed... one of my daughter's college graduations, I've missed times when I should have been there to teach my child how to drive or I should have been there to teach my child how to ride a bike. I missed a lot of that, right? And a lot of it had to do with circumstance and my circumstance, which I obviously contributed to creating for myself, I had to take responsibility for these choices that I made and these circumstances that I created for myself.
And the situation that became a real life situation for me left me very few choices. So there was a choice where I could be there for everything and then the money ain't where it need to be. Or I'm gonna do what I love, not just because I love it and it brings me joy and it brings me peace of mind because I would go to the studio and when I'm in that studio and I close the door and then I'm in those four walls I don't have to argue with a child's mother.
I don't have to argue with my woman. I don't get talk back from people that choose to have a debate about shit that ain't even worth debating about. All of the unnecessary distractions, I can leave outside of that room. And when I'm in that room, I am fulfilling my destiny. I am fulfilling my soul and I'm making myself get to a place mentally where my peace of mind is so where it needs to be that not only am I allowed to become, feel, think, and evolve into whatever place my mind takes me, I'm then able to get to that place emotionally, spiritually, mentally, create something, put it in a song, change the effect that I can have as an impact through this thing that I'm blessed with as a gift.
And then I could come down off of that and be in a happier place so that when I do get back around the people that I gotta argue with, I'm in a better place to deal with them. sort of guilt associated with that as you've sort of matured and understood and had time to reflect on missing those key moments. I worry about this a lot because I'm a workaholic and I think my work is in many respects, some kind of psychological escape. And I'm concerned that when I do have a kid, I've got a partner, I've been together four years, I'm 31 now, that I might use my work as an excuse to not be there or I might not make the necessary adjustment to realize that I only get one bike ride moment.
So- I'm gonna tell you something. There is no right way and no wrong way when it comes to making that decision, other than what you know in your heart. I definitely live with guilt. I feel like there was things that I could have done without to be there for my children. But I also feel like that's me saying that now, right? I'm in a different place now in my life than I was at that time. And at that time, the mentality that I have now didn't exist then, right?
And the mentality that needed to exist then for me to get to this mentality now was important. And it was a part of the needed components to exist in my journey for me to be able to have this conversation now, this mentality now. Was that survival? It definitely was survival. When you're dealing with four mothers, all having you in court systems, all getting significant amount of money for child support, all not in the best place relationship-wise with you.
Sometimes business is up, sometimes business is down. You have to be able to be swift and changeable, regardless of the circumstances, in order to stay remaindable. Because no matter if business is up or business is down, the courts don't care. The child support that needs to come every month, the mothers need to see it, because they don't care. When your kids need what they need, they don't care. Because they didn't ask for this. You can't create an excuse.
That's how I was raised. Your kid didn't ask to be put in a situation that you cannot do what you're supposed to do for them. So it's not their problem. You have to find a solution. It's a lot of pressure. It's a lot. It's a lot. But I also feel like when you identify with your gift, that's part of the gift. That's what makes it the gift. Because the most high usually don't give us more than we can handle. And with that being said, All of these things we talking about, which is one of the best questions that I love that you asked, right?
What would I give my kids? And I keep coming back to that because I want my kids to understand that focus on what you love is most primary, being selfish. And when I say selfish, not just my kids, but even my woman, there might be a lot of shit she wanna do. I'm sorry. I can't do it right now. I can't do it right now. I could do it later. And then there's moments when you can do it and you make the time and you do it, you know? But until there's another means of me being able to do what I love and find the fulfillment that I find while I'm doing what I love, This is also a part of who y'all fell in love with.
Moments in our life, I think, help us to see things a little bit more clearly. And especially when they're really significant moments. And one of those moments that I see in your story is in 2012, where I think you're 42 years old at the time, and your manager and friend, Chris, dies. Rest in peace to Chris. Chris was all that I knew. Everything, everything that I learned after Chuck D and Hank Shockley and them, I learned it with Chris. I learned how to make my money with Chris.
My tax brackets changed with Chris. My lawyers changed because Chris. My booking agents changed with Chris. My touring experiences changed with Chris. My ability to tell my mother to quit her job and never had to look back to work for nobody from 1995 to this day. All of that, I did it with Chris. That day when you find out that Chris has passed, can you take me to that day? That day was so fucking terrible, bro. Wow. His life changed when this woman came into his life.
I'm not gonna dive too much into that part, but I'm definitely gonna say that Chris's life changed not for the better when she came around. So once that happened, it started to change the energy amongst the Violator family And I really wish, because I don't want this to be heard in a way where it seemed like I'm shitting on the woman because I'm not shitting on the woman. I'm acknowledging the reality of the situation. As you can see, I'm not saying nothing bad about the woman.
I'm just talking about, I'm acknowledging a time period where a change transpired in a significant way and it happened after this woman came around. That's it. Long story short, I think his daughter was coming home from college and he had to go and meet her at Grand Central Station in Manhattan. So, He asked me for a ride to Grand Central Station. And I give him the lift to Grand Central Station. And that's the last day that I saw him. The next morning, I get the call from his assistant that something happened to him.
And I'm asking what happened to him. And they just said he hurt himself. But they didn't say, you know, that he was dead. It just was like he hurt himself. The assistant called this young lady, I forget her name, at the office. And when the young lady answered the phone, we're on the three-way. And she's crying and she's screaming on the phone. And she just kept saying, Chris hurt himself, Chris hurt himself. And the assistant is asking her, what exactly did he do to himself?
And she said, she don't know. He just hurt himself. And then we asked if he was dead. And then she said, she don't know. So when we got to Chris's home... We couldn't go in the house. And it wasn't until you saw the coroner van come. And when you saw the van, and then they reversed the van into the driveway to get as close to the door, of the house, because it was a downstairs door, and then there was the regular door to go up the stairs, and you go in the house from the front.
But whatever happened to him, it happened downstairs, because that's where his body was. And they went inside, and they brought them black bags with him, them body bags, and... That's when it got real. That's when it changed, everything changed when you saw the bags. And we knew when they came out the... We knew when they came out the... when they came out the basement with the bags and his body was in the bags. That's when you knew Chris was never coming back.
So, you know the crying started and a lot of arguing started. A lot of threats started. My life was going in a whole other direction after that. And I didn't like it. Cause I was confused about how to move. And I was lost for a minute because I, I never really had to manage my career without a manager. And he wasn't just a manager. He was my brother. So it got scary for a minute. Couldn't get it together. That's why I didn't put on a record for nine years.
And, um, I started to just do different type of business with signing artists and, uh, um, that's when we put out OT Genesis and, um, we had some really good success with him and, um, signed a few other artists, you know, this one artist by the name of Stov, Stovgard Cooks and I signed, you know, another young artist by the name of Murda Mook. And I, I wasn't happy though with just doing it like that. I just, I didn't feel comfortable putting out music until I got the right support system in place and I couldn't get it together.
When you say you couldn't get it together, what does that mean? That means like- Psychologically, you couldn't get it together. Psychologically, I couldn't get it together because I didn't feel like I had a support system that I could believe in enough to make me feel like I am psychologically able to move with the comfort, the confidence, and the support that I know I'm gonna need. And the responsibility of trying to wear all of the hats myself, I was doing it, but I wasn't doing it at the level that Chris Lighty was able to do it.
And you were grieving at the same time. Absolutely, because I lost my father two years after Chris. The two most important male figures in my life Chris was gone 2012, I lost my father 2014. And you'd reconciled with him before? I definitely reconciled with him before he passed. The problem is I didn't get to enjoy my time with him once we got good. So that was a horrible feeling too, because it's like all of the time that was wasted, not getting along was stupid.
fucking stupid. You know what I'm saying? That's part of the reason why I started to really like get unhealthy and fucked up. I was trying everything to drown the pain and the frustration and the suffering of those losses by overworking, over drinking, over smoking weed and cigarettes. And it got so bad that I got to the weight of 340 pounds. I never been that, I'm not even built to be that heavy. It's funny, it's like I look back at certain pictures and I looked at how overweight I was.
I look at my skin. Yeah, there's certain pictures I had. I had these like marks on my face. I hate those pictures. Like I see the darkness in those pictures, yo. There's this book called The Body Holds the Score, but the title is just the thing that I've actually gained the most from. It just says that when there's things going on in our psychology and our mind, the body will show it. Yeah, man. We'll eat, we'll drink, we won't sleep, but you'll see it in the body before you see it in the mind.
The mind is invisible, obviously. Right, right. The body is the first place to see it. And I was reading through that phase of your life and you were on sort of breathing machines when you were sleeping and things like sleep apnea. Nah, I wasn't on a breathing machine, I had sleep apnea. Oh yeah, sleep apnea. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had sleep apnea. I was- You drank yourself into a coma at one point? I drank myself into, not a coma, I drank myself into an inability to wake myself up.
Oh, okay. I had to be woken up by my son and my security in LA. It took like 45 minutes and we had just come back from hanging out at a club called Poppy's. He sat me down the next day. He was like, listen, I don't wanna hurt your feelings cause you my father. And I don't even know if I got the strength to say it to you now, but I had a conversation with the security I need you to listen to them because I'm too scared to tell you how I feel. That's how bad it was.
My son ain't never speak to me like that in my life, but I needed to hear it. But he couldn't even say it to me because that's how much he still was trying to protect my feelings. My feelings. But this is the first time that I knew I really disappointed my son. All that Busta Rhymes shit was cool up until this moment when he saw this shit. And he's been seeing it, but this is when it hits the low. That conversation fucked me up. The next day the doctor's with the prednisone and I went to the doctor.
§03Transcript — part 3
I'm breathing so fucked up that outside of the door, The doctor was like, yo, why are you breathing like that? And he wasn't even in the room with me. He's coming in the room. And I said, breathing like what? Because I was doing it for so long over the last three years that it was starting to sound normal to me. The doctor said, I'm sending you to the hospital because he stuck this shit in my throat. And when he saw how big the fucking pallets was, it blocked 90% of my breathing passage.
He said, if he sends me home, and I take a shower and the central air system is blowing and I catch a draft that can lead to me catching a cold and that last 10% of my breathing gets blocked up because of a swollen gland from a sore throat or some shit, I can die in my sleep that night. He said, I've got to call an ambulance for you. I'm in California. LA, he says, I need you to go right now to UCLA Medical Center into the emergency room, and I'm going to call the head person at the hospital to have them admit you immediately.
You need to go into surgery tomorrow. I said, I ain't going to no ambulance. He said, well, then you have to sign this document that will exemplify me. If you don't listen and something happens and you die between now and when you get to the hospital. I ain't never been spoken to like this in my life. This is when I knew this shit was crazy. My son now, I'm calling him, telling him to meet me at the hospital. We get to the hospital and I'm in the doctor's office and they doing all of the preliminary shit before they gotta admit me into the emergency.
My son is talking to me and he tells me, I thought you was gonna die last night. And I ain't never been this scared dad, but I'm scared you're gonna die. I lost grandpa already. I can't lose you too. Can you please stop drinking? Can you please stop smoking? Can you please get back to the daddy that I know you to be? Finished me. At that point, I made up my mind. I'm going to get this surgery. When I get this surgery, I'm going to get in shape. I go home.
On the way home, Dexter Jackson, bodybuilder competitor. He used to compete in the Olympia. He became a Mr. Olympia champ. This man pops up in my stories. He's like, driving in his car in Jacksonville, Florida, and he's spitting the vocals to put your hands where my eyes could see. And then I hit him in the DM and I said, Mr. Jackson, I'm a huge fan of you as a professional bodybuilder. Is there any way that we could get on the phone? I need your help.
He hits me back, he sends me his number. I call him on the phone. I said, Thanks for calling me. I salute you, Mr. Jackson. Can we please figure out a way to get me back in shape?" That man said to me, "'You sure you ready, bus?' And I said, "'Absolutely.'" He said, "'You gotta come to Jacksonville, and you gotta stay here for 30 days. Tell your girl she can't come, tell your kids you'll see them in 30 days. I need to put you through something for 30 days before we continue this journey.
You survived this 30 days, I know you serious. I rented a motherfucking mansion for like seven bedrooms. I went and got a cameraman to document it. My meal prep chef, my masseuse, because I knew that that workout was going to fuck me up every day and I needed somebody to rub these muscles up. I got my recording engineer, so I didn't need to leave the house. I got an assistant. And that was about it. Stayed in the fucking crib for 30 days. Lost about 27 pounds in 30 days.
These dudes that I'm surrounded by, by way of my first bodybuilding competitor trainer, Victor Munoz, and my second primary trainer, the legendary Mr. Olympia himself, Dexter Jackson, I was able to get my shit together, bro. And once I got my health, and once I got my mind and I got my spirit right, and I started to be proud of me, when I looked at me and my kids was looking at me and they would say shit that you could only hear once you did what you needed to do and put in the work you needed to put in, so that it shows They're not gonna say it if it don't look like the way they need to see it so they could say what they need to say.
When that happened, you hearing the right shit, you feeling the right love, that shit was lifting my spirit so much. And then I'm gonna tell you something, Going through this pandemic was another serious challenge, mentally and emotionally and spiritually. My brothers Pharrell, Williams, and Swiss Beats, and Big Up the Timbaland 2, was all four of them as the executive producers of this new album, Blockbuster. which is out right now. Absolutely.
The Blockbuster album is out, and I'm super grateful to everybody that participated in helping this magic happen and come together. This is the culmination of all of the experience and all of the life stories that we've talked about. But the thing that really stood out to me is you've made the decision to put people on this album who are young, up-and-coming, fresher artists who you haven't really worked with previously, and you've worked with bloody everybody, everybody.
But you chose to give these younger artists a platform for some reason. Two reasons. The first reason is I'm never gonna listen to the narrative of this thing where I would hear it a little more regularly than I actually choose to hear it. I actually don't ever wanna hear it, but it's this bullshit about how the elder statesmen or the older MCs don't really respect what the new guys is doing. That shit is bullshit. At least speaking for myself and the type of artists that I surround myself with, we don't feel like that.
We don't move like that. We encouraged that shit because when we was young artists, we wanted the big dudes to put their arms around us and give us game and school us and teach us shit so we could be better. You know what I'm saying? Chuck D gave me my name. Big Daddy Kane used to let me come to his crib and ask questions. He put me on his albums. He used to help me learn, let me learn, bring me the shows that he was performing at. Fucking De La Soul, they did the same shit for us.
Too many MCs gave us the guidance that made me great. I feel like it's only right that we do the same shit for the next generation of motherfuckers, especially if they dope. And I'm a fan of a lot of these new artists. And I want to work with them because they still inspiring me to want to go in the studio and stay razor blade sharp with my shit when I got to do my shit. You know what I'm saying? And I see a lot of them paying homage. There's a lot of motherfuckers walking around with their hairstyles like how I used to wear it with my dreads.
There's a lot of motherfuckers that dress and they throw their heavy jewelry on that do it the way I used to do it and still do it. I just ain't got the dreads no more. But all that other shit, we still doing it. But I just want to make sure that they know... We're not only here to give them the answers and the mentorship and the guidance and the information, so they could be that much more sharper when they're being creative or when they're sitting in the fucking corporate office negotiating a deal with their lawyers and their managers.
But I also want them to know that we love them too. We're fans of what they doing. We see y'all paying homage and we want y'all to know we paying homage to y'all too. One of the things I always think is destined to own the future is when both the past and present come together. And I say that with all due respect because sometimes people see projects like this as you passing the torch. But what you're actually doing is sharing the flame. Sharing the fucking flame.
You couldn't have said it better. Yeah. Because I ain't putting the flame out in no time. You're 33 years deep and you're still selling out the shows and doing the arenas and killing the game. And I'm so excited by this project for those reasons, because you have two sort of generations coming together to create the future. And that's what's so exciting. And I have to say, from this conversation, everything you say and understanding the man that Buster is puts so much more meaning into the lyrics, into the album and the records.
Thank you. Everyone needs to go check this album out right now, wherever you stream anything. Please go check it out because it's one hell of a project. And you talked about that Google CEO who you inspired when he was 10 years old. You were that person and you still are that person for me. Thank you, King. So it's such an honor to get to spend this time with you today. Thank you, man. Likewise, man. For real. I really appreciate it. The questions you asked...
The places you went, I didn't expect it. I'm glad I wasn't prepped. I'm glad I wasn't prepped. I'm glad. You know what I'm saying? I just was given a prerequisite of how important you mean in this space, in your platform, and congratulations to the... your evolution and your success with what you've been able to create for yourself. Thank you bro. And becoming a successful businessman. I was driven and inspired by the story that I was being told about you.
And I was like, oh no, fuck that. I gotta come pull up and I'm taking my time. I appreciate it. Because we're gonna do this shit properly. And I've never done an interview in 33 years. Never done an interview this in depth. Number two, I ain't never sat with nobody this motherfucking long and did no interview in Europe in my life neither. So you hold the record, bro. I appreciate you. Honestly, it's one of the greatest honors of me ever getting to do this is hearing that from you.
So thank you so much, Buster. Thank you. It's an honor and a pleasure, brother. Appreciate you, King.