I first heard Busta Rhymes rap on the soundtrack to a film about Muhammed Ali called When We Were Kings. The track was a Fugees single featuring A Tribe Called Quest, John Forte and the energetic top hat wearing rapper. Around that time, MTV UK ran quality shows for RnB and hiphop fans. There was Trevor Nelson’s The Lick and some great, representative magazine style shows on MTV Base. Later on in an evening’s schedule, MTV US shows like The Lyricist Lounge would be aired and I’d stay up late for my hiphop fix.

A BIORhythm special on Busta introduced me to his live guest spot on Tribe’s Scenario and from then on I was hooked. Dangerous hit the top of the UK charts and was soon followed by a series of creative, high budget videos for inventive, gripping songs.

Busta Rhymes albums captured the imaginations of my friends and I for their running themes of conspiracy theory and comedy interlude. There was always lots of filler but without fail, a good handful of really strong singles showcasing Busta’s incredible flows atop unconventional production that stood out from much else. It’s never mattered that the lyrics aren’t always of a strong theme or story because they’re executed in such a way that distracts, in a good way, from any point they might be trying to make.

When Disaster Strikes was a seamless step forward from his initial solo album The Coming. That first outing followed his many years in the group Leaders Of The New School and somewhat mirrored his collective’s old school, underground sound. Extinction Level Event showcased Busta at his most energetic on the breathless Gimme Some More and relentless Iz They Wildin With Us? As the mid 90s era reigns of Puff Daddy, DMX, Jay Z etc grew to quieter phases, Busta Rhymes released the enjoyable Anarchy and whilst all albums since have included brilliant singles and even more supreme remixes of those, the artist’s relevance and critical acclaim has somewhat declined.

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Another book on heroes,
stenches of vinegar to work,
screens, desks, tea mugs,
where bar dreams lurk
before weekend sketches,
seven pint glasses deep.
The Monday to Friday shuffle
begins atop a hill that’s steep.
Paper clips and croissants,
time sheets plotting the way.
A church choir’s faint murmers
coat streets of an hour’s play
before afternoon rituals
of acronym and jet ink.
Rock n roll babies
aged in a blink.

Beware the love child of Bruno Mars and Nicole Scherzinger
who’s superpowers could bore you into a Play Doh figurine
sentencing you to a life of regimental choreogra-yawns
should the only cure escape your malleable mind;
a 21st century rarity that many doubt the very existence of,
a Rhianna costume that covers more than a toe’s worth of flesh.

Night in and night in and night in stabbing Twiglets at your face
whilst your arse sits amalgamated to a spongey sofa of crumbs
the one hundred and twenty million percent predictable
fudge of pram babies whaling through contrivance
upon lording scarecrows of bleached teeth and horse tail hair
would thumbprint dependency into your one tone being.

You’d not find that antidote easily beneath Chris Brown’s bed
as deep thirsts for syrupy intakes of meaningless sludge shake
through your dense, airless, squeezed to inconsequence body
that only moves to a corner shop and back as if a puppet
being unstuck and plodded elsewhere to line up silently
fingering through a glossy about the next impeding brain rape.

Beneath the faint, tinny whispers of a freer co-passenger,
across stores to further, non air conditioned, less lit places,
within pages that don’t hatch down the spine
for a hand to burst out of and pull your eyes from their sockets
to point you in the straightest, most generic and plain of paths,
is where the medicine of a dress beyond buttock length lives.

Wash and iron after every outing you dress within it,
sew any rogue threads back into its delicate seams,
store on a hanger so it may rest after a constructive day,
feeling bit by bit, your being not a state of static decay
but an evolving, reforming, mobile, inquisitive organism,
stronger and of more flesh each bold costume outing.