When I think back to the early 2000s, I see a world where music was starting to turn into what it is today. Rappers like Ja Rule and Nelly were teaming up with singers to create these R&B ballads. While those songs have a particularly retro charm at this point, they bridged a gap that found the rugged sound of 90s rap and pop becoming something more mainstream. You still had those stragglers like Eminem, who at the time was still one of the most dangerous voices on the radio. Even then, OutKast was about to release a pop phenomenon with “Hey Ya” and change the style from XXL white tees to the dapper suits that made the genre into a high-class style game.
It’s a real time capsule of a moment, where the once taboo had become normalized. If you had to look at rap music in 2020, it doesn’t look nearly as crazy as it once did. Two decades ago the genre was still touted as inciting violence, relying on negative stereotypes to marginalize a style that didn’t fit into the white zeitgeist. Nowadays we’re as likely to find rappers like Earl Sweatshirt pouring out his soul as we do the familiar Top 40 work that mixes braggadocio with performers who couldn’t fit another tattoo on their face if they tried. Now that I’m 30, I am even less understanding of why you’d want a face tattoo, but you do you.
What I do know is that there was one force that has faded since the early 2000s that felt like he would be around forever. He was tornado ripping through every town and uprooting houses. There was nothing like him and his ability to adapt and evolve with the times made him seem destined to be that one face that every generation would know. Coming off of a good decade of success that mixed bit parts with a provocative solo career that earned him the nickname “The Jester,” he was that wildcard who not only brought the hits but became noted as one of the greatest live rappers in history (an honor that becomes even more impressive when you look at the alternatives).
I don’t know if audiences know how much power that Busta Rhymes had 20 years ago. I’m not talking about misguided acting appearances, such as in Halloween Resurrection (2002) where he gives one of the best awful lines in “Trick or treat, motherfucker.” I’m talking about his music. Every year that I was in middle school felt like it brought with it a new single. Who could deny the dizzying magic of “Break Ya Neck,” or his collaboration with Mariah Carey? There’s so much that feels lost to time as he found himself able to do everything from running his mouth off to wear his heart on his sleeve.
Then again, it was more impressive when you consider where his solo career started. There are tons of tracks early on that reflect his ability to jump on the mic and steal a moment away from his more popular friends. Among the most noteworthy is A Tribe Called Quest’s “Scenario,” where he outshined the group on one of their most acclaimed albums “Low End Theory.” You couldn’t help but be amazed at so much of what he was doing on that song. Who was this kid who sounded like he became a rapper not by studying the masters but reading a dictionary description and figuring it out organically?
That has always been Busta Rhymes’ charm when you get down to it. His staccato, Jamaican patois, and flow were unlike the more conventional style of the mainstream. Nobody was doing it like him, and the fact that he had so much glee in his voice only made him sound more comedic. His lyrics were often seen as these insane lapses of sanity, where you were witnessing a crazy person who got a record contract with Elektra. Why would you give that man the keys to the prison, unleashing his own supporting cast of characters in Flip Mode Squad to make rap into something more aggressive and strange? Who did he think he was, Ol’ Dirty Bastard (more on him later)?
A crucial part of the Busta Rhymes mythology was that his debut album, “The Coming,” came after the disbanding of Leaders of the New School. However, that had been three years and while he had made the rounds with cameos with everyone from Notorious B.I.G. to T.L.C., he hadn’t come through with a solo career. Was he destined to be this unheralded talent? It didn’t seem likely, especially given that if you talk to Busta Rhymes you’ll find a man eager to entertain. His live shows were legendary and his expansive work was only becoming more mythic with time. He even had people imitating him.
Then it came like a bugle horn announcing the arrival of a foreign diplomat. In 1993, the moment came where he stomped his foot on the music industry with his debut album. This would be the first of six albums he released before the turn of the millennium as if making up for lost time. However, there was one moment, in particular, that is crucial to understanding the mentality of Busta Rhymes, at least at the beginning.
*Note: Song begins around 0:30
In a time where gangsta rap was presenting a dangerous image with guns and strippers, Busta Rhymes decided to forgo the tropes for something crazier. “Woo Ha!! Got You All in Check” wasn’t just another debut single. It was on that demanded to stand out with its vulgar showmanship, finding ways to make repeating “Yah!” at least 40 times in a drunken tone into a rallying cry. You were intoxicated by the time the song started, confused by whatever was about to happen. When he yelled “Woo ha!” it sounded like it echoed through the ether like a Blue Angel. You can’t help but wonder if it really happened.
Give me room, give me some space, yo excuse
Many see it as a reference to the song’s sampled track “Space” by Galt MacDermot. Beyond dropping references to things like Star Wars (1977), Top Gun (1986), Elvis Presley, G.I. Joe, and Hi-Pro Glow, he manages to make every line have a singular rhyme structure for 16 bars. Verse 1 rhymes with indeed. Verse 2 rhymes with shoes. Verse 3 rhymes with flow. If the song has any subtler joke than that Busta Rhymes is crazy, it’s that guest rapper Rampage’s bridge achieves a 0% rhyming achievement.
When dealing with “Woo Ha!!” you’re very likely to remember the music video, though not the official one. In the original, director Hype Williams finds Busta Rhymes and Rampage rapping in front of a series of screens that include a warped perspective blue wall and explosive backgrounds as characters jump in the background. It has the manic vibe that you’d expect for a song like this, even featuring Busta Rhymes posing in a shot with his son. If there is one thing that deserves to be remembered, it’s Williams’ use of the fish-eye lens, which manages to make scenes that involve the rapper driving through a brightly lit city to feel stretched out. Nothing about the video looks normal. Even when presenting something as simple as a car’s interior, it feels like it’s five miles long.
If the story stopped here, then Busta Rhymes would already have a mythic presence in hip-hop. It’s true that the video doesn’t hold a candle to his next collaboration with Williams with “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See,” but it was a declarative statement that announced him at the exact right time. Had he arrived any sooner, there would be a great disservice. He was as much reliant on the advent of the music video as he was writing the most aggressive and strange music that made him a subversive alternate to his competition. That explains why this song received a Grammy nomination as well as sold over a million copies despite “The Coming” not quite being as revered.
But this is the story of Busta Rhymes. He couldn’t just do a single and call it a day. Not in a time where he was jumping on remixes like Craig Mack’s “Flava in Your Ear” regularly. No, he needed to team up with Elektra labelmate Ol’ Dirty Bastard for a remix that held just as much prominence in each of their careers. Ol’ Dirty Bastard was coming off of a remix of the Mariah Carey song “Fantasy” as well as a Grammy nomination for his album “Return to 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version.” If you thought that Busta Rhymes was mad, you just needed to talk to Ol’ Dirty Bastard, whose very name was a reference to the fact that he was “the father to his style.”
There is a great chance that if you’re thinking of “Woo Ha!!” that you’re thinking of the remix. The collaboration seems almost too plausible, the music video even more predictable. The video was directed by Michael Lucero and featured the duo spending a prominent amount of the video in a Siamese trench coat, stumbling around a psych ward aimlessly. Other memorable imagery includes a scene where Busta Rhymes is spray painted silver and Ol’ Dirty Bastard gold as they dance around shirtless. Whether or not it was a reference to Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Give It Away” music video that has similar surrealism is unclear. Still, there is a winking nod to their insanity that makes the video wonderfully absurd and inherently 90s in its visual effects.
The fact that they didn’t collaborate more often remains a big mystery. After all, both were as crucial in reflecting the weird side of rap in the 1990s. Along with Missy Elliott, they were presenting a side of the genre as something creative and strange, showing that it was more than the dangerous stereotype that the media had perpetuated. True, you had the wishy-washy image of Will Smith, but he felt like a token black guy in the big picture. The genre was largely “rap crap” to white audiences over a certain age.
Even if the genre has changed significantly since 1993, there is something that remains wonderfully unhinged about Busta Rhymes’ debut solo single. Many have followed in his footstep, but as he would be the first to note, nobody can do it like him. It was the start of an impressive run of permeating culture, making him a force to be reckoned with. He still shows up from time to time, such as on Chris Brown’s “Look At Me Now.” Even in 2011, he was outshining his competition.
There was a lawsuit that arose in 2015 involving the song. It was raised by Sugar Hill Gang, who had taken to suing rappers around this time (see also: The Beastie Boys’ “Triple Trouble”), arguing that the phrase “got you all in check” was a reference to their hit “8th Wonder" and that his song was 20% in reference to them. Among Busta Rhymes’ rebuttal was that it had been 12 years and that they needed a statute of limitations, as well as the phrase is more common use than they gave credit. There was an undisclosed settlement.
The only thing crazier than “Woo Ha!!” becoming a phenomenon was that Busta Rhymes never exactly mellowed out. Sure he doesn’t release as many songs or albums as he used to, but to dive into his early work is to see a man eager to please. He was a natural-born performer, ready to prove himself to anyone that doubted his talent. That is what makes his debut single so appealing still. Even if it has something of a novelty quality to it, there is an energy and eagerness that is infectious. Where you like the original or the remix, it’s the perfect embodiment of a career to come. It was so confident and unhinged, and it was the birth of a wonderful and strange time in music culture that would never be the same again.
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