He's not dropping names yet, but new guys with one or two hit singles are only eligible to warm up.
If you want to know how Busta Rhymes has lasted so long in the rap game, you don't have to look any further than the stage. Bus is arguably hip-hop's king of the stage, and this summer, he'll be giving refresher courses at a venue near you on The Big Bang Tour.
"We're planning the tour right now," he said on Monday in New York while pushing his new LP, The Big Bang (see "Busta Rhymes Album Preview: Bus Gets Deep About The Big Bang"). "I can't officially disclose [who I'm bringing on the road yet], but it's probably going to be one of the biggest tours this summer because, for the most part, it's only heavyweights on this lineup.
"I'm not saying that some of the new dudes ain't heavyweights, but you might be a new dude that got a smash right now, but what I mean by heavyweights is that you got a catalog of smashes," he added. "Which means you can take people through a timeline of hit records and you can put on a show for a lengthy amount of time and really give people their money's worth. Two, three songs, you might be able to come on and open as opening act."
Before he goes on tour, you might see Busta cruising the streets to see who is pumping his album. Rhymes said he wants feedback on what people are feeling about his album.
"The album got pushed back a couple of times because we wasn't feeling like it was 100 percent the way we wanted it to be," he said. "We felt if we waited this long, it made no sense of rushing it. Let's just get it right. That was Dr. Dre's whole philosophy: Get it right. Nobody is going to be mad if the project is a success. The more we worked, the hotter things were turning out anyway. So pushing it back was a matter of our personal liking to be satisfied. I'm extremely excited about the album coming out right now."
The Big Bang has already yielded two singles.
"I decided to follow up ['Touch It'] with 'I Love My Bitch' because now that I had the feel-good energy coming back, I wanted to keep it in the club. I also felt like I wanted a global record that could be shot down by no genre, no race. ... Love your chick, and chick, love your dude."
One of the songs that means the most to Busta is "New York Sh--," which is becoming a hometown anthem for the Big Apple.
"DJ Scratch produced the track," he said. "It felt like New York needed to have that sound, that identity of New York, to be brought back to New York. I don't think my album would have felt the same without that record on it."
Busta shot a video for "New York Sh--" with Big Daddy Kane, Slick Rick, Wu-Tang Clan and Rakim on June 4. Part of the video was filmed during Hot 97's Summer Jam (see "Where's The Beef? T.I., Busta, Mary J., Diplomats Keep Summer Jam Light On Drama").
— Shaheem Reid
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