At a recent podcast and book signing at the National Hip-Hop Museum in DC, author and A&R man Dante Ross spoke about Busta Rhymes and the Leaders Of The New School and Busta's drive to become a star.

"When they would do a show everyone's attention was on Busta," he said.

Matty C of Source Magazine and Loud Records who was in attendance at the event interjected, "In all fairness when they first came out there was a lot of attention on Charlie Brown too."

Ross agreed. "The balance of power shifted," he admitted. "I've seen tension in bands before and it's not always bad, sometimes it's dope and it makes shit better. Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, and The Who all hated each other, there's a history of that in bands and I thought it might help The Leaders."

Matty C explained to Rock The Bells that the aforementioned power shift occurred at a show with KRS-ONE. "It was at Car Wash at Cuando on 2nd Ave in '90 I think. Leaders were on stage with KRS, going back forth freestyling and Brown killed it. The show was promoted by Ted Demme's widow Amanda Scheer & Jessica Rosenblum."

Dante then explained what prompted him to sign the Leaders of The New School.

"I seen them rock on one mic off of "Impeach The President" at Pay Day Records and I had to sign them. Charlie Brown knew who I was and I told him to come to my office the next day. He came by himself, because the legend is that the group had already broken up, but they got back together just to sign. The first time that they ever came to my office together, Busta and Charlie got in a big argument. Their infighting always thwarted the final message. They are the opposite of The Beasties. The Beasties are the sum of their parts — they're cool but there's no Busta Rhymes in The Beasties. The sum of their parts is tremendous. Same with De La, although they're better rappers. Their sum is tremendous. With Leaders and the sum of their parts, the math was off."