In a recent interview with Billboard, Busta Rhymes talked about his latest EP The Fuse Is Lit, his stop dates with Dave Chapelle cleverly called Dave & Busta, and his current standing in Hip-Hop.
One of the most interesting parts of the conversation came when he was asked about DJ Akademik's comments, in which he called rap pioneers "dusty," drawing criticism from Hip-Hop's elite, including a pointed, much-appreciated response from LL COOL J. For his part, Busta says he didn't feel the need to react — his actions speak loudly enough, including featuring Hip-Hop icon, Big Daddy Kane on the lead single from his lead project, "Slap" with Conway The Machine.
"I’m not really one to react to things impulsively anymore," he said. "Sometimes I gotta sit down and think about how and why and what caused that. I got a different perspective at the age that I’m at than the perspective I had at his age. So I try to not make myself react impulsively, even though what he said and how he said it rubbed people the wrong way. But my way of responding to that is to not respond. Y’all can look at the god Kane [in the “Slap” video], and then you see what my response is right there. I didn’t do that to respond to Akademiks, let’s be clear. I did it because I love Kane. He’s a hero to me."
Busta went on to say that he was happy that Kane agreed to do the song, and it's important to give him his flowers.
"He went on We rocked on his record, and he gifted us with his presence on this record," Bust said. "And it felt like it was deemed worthy to make this f–king moment eventful, because it was eventful to me. And I felt like this shit was eventful to the culture. And let that s–t speak to everyone it needs to speak to — young, in-between, demo-wise, elder statesmen. N—s ain’t seen Kane in a long time in this likeness. Big don, godfather shit, stepping out the Phantom, furred up, diamond’d up, hard bottoms, tuxes, looking like Marlon Brando in The Godfather, as he should look. He don’t just look great, he will still f–k y’all n—as up, bar-for-bar. We invigorate the God, give him his flowers, and let him feel inspired, that much more incentivized to want to go in and probably even give us a new motherf–king project. That’s what it is for me."
