Who can mistake the upside down, sideways, and just plain in ya face antics of the one and only Bus A Bus? His voice and lyrical cadence are unmistakable as he hollas orders to his international hip hop fans like “Break Ya Neck”, “Gimme Some More” or the ever popular—“Pass the Courvoisier”. With five platinum albums, one platinum single and three gold singles to his credit, Busta Rhymes continues to be one of hip hop’s most bankable stars.

Starting with his first solo album, 1996’s “The Coming”, Busta showed that his inexhaustible energy, infectious beats and impeccable imagery would set him apart from others in the hip hop genre. The vibrant and fun “Woo Hah! Got You All In Check” video solidified him as hip hop’s most creative personality, someone who’d sport outlandish gear, twis’ up him face, and still rock rhymes of the highest caliber. “I set standards visually with the videos,” Busta told XXL magazine. “From the special effects to the kind of concepts.” The "Woo Ha" video, which was the first successful hip hop video to use a fish-eye lens, was directed by Hype Williams. Hype told GQ magazine in 2000 “For Busta I used wide-angle lenses because he is very animated, a very extreme artist, and I was able to [further] exaggerate his already exaggerated movements.”

Busta Rhymes [born Trevor Smith, Jr.], hails from the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn. A first
generation Jamerican, Busta’s ragamuffin style isn’t as evident as fellow Flatbush native, Shaggy, but in “Break Ya Neck” you’ll catch the distinct influence of slick tongued dancehall masters such as Super Cat and Lieutenant Stitchie. “Yeah, I think my Jamaican background definitely distinguishes me from other things going on in hip hop,” Busta says in an interview with The Guardian. “I mean, it’s just how I was brought up. My moms, my pops, everyone’s Jamaican in the house. As far as the rhythm and style, being attracted to that, the flamboyant dress, all of that comes as a result of being from that environment, and that liberation in the culture. The integrity level of Jamaicans is real high-- we’re proud of everything.”

At the age of 12, Busta and his family relocated to Long Island. It was there while a junior at Uniondale High School that he discovered his love of rapping and hooked up with three young brothers who, together, would become the foundation of a group called Leaders of the New School (LONS). Around 1986 Trevor Smith and crew won a talent contest sponsored by Public Enemy. Chuck D then gave him the name Busta Rhymes and the opportunity to for LONS to be mentored by Public Enemy. The group began recording in PE’s studios and eventually signed with Elektra Records in 1989. In an interview with NY Rock, Busta describes the tough love dished out by PE as “discouraging” sometimes. “The way they would do things, it would feel almost as if they didn’t want us to be around. Like we were getting on their nerves. And it was pretty much a test of the faith and the dedication, and the commitment and the dire sacrifice, that they wanted to see whether or not we were willing to make, to even be worthy of being a part of their affiliation. And I respected it a lot later on.”

While LONS 1990 debut album in, Future Without a Past, gave a solid start to his career, it was Busta’s cameos on the remix of Craig Mack’s hit “Flava in Ya Ear” and A Tribe Called Quest’s classic “Scenario” that crystallized his vocal prowess for the masses.

Launching his solo career into the next stratosphere with the success of crossover smashes like “Put Ya Hands Where My Eyes Can See”, Busta cemented himself and his Flipmode Productions as a ‘cultural force that would transcend the boundaries of hip hop’. He then went on to do collaborations with some of the best talents in the industry; Mary J. Blige, TLC, Janet Jackson and Boys II Men to name a few. Deciding to seize this opportunity to branch out and display his other talents, he went on to flex some acting muscle in movies including Forest Whitaker’s Strapped, John Singleton’s Higher Learning, Ted Demme’s Who’s the Man?, and the acclaimed Gus Van Sant film Finding Forrester in which he co-starred with Sean Connery. As if all of this was not enough, the industrious entrepreneur still found time to create his own record company, Flipmode Entertainment, take his artist, Flipmode Squad, to gold status with their first album, and unveil his own clothing line, Bushi.

Voted one of the top 115 hip hop artists of the past 15 years by Source magazine, Busta Rhymes is keeping his name on the street with a plethora of guest appearances like the remix of the Lumidee summer dance hit “Uh-Oh” with Fabolous, the new Neptunes presents…..The Clones song “Light Your Ass on Fire”, and the upcoming remix of Lil Jon’s crunk blow out, “Get Low” which will team Busta up with Jamaican deejay Elephant Man. With an MTV Video Music Award nomination for Best Hip Hop video for “I Know What You Want” with Mariah Carey, and the final dates for the Rock da Mic tour just winding down, how does Bus A Bus keep it coming?

“I try to pace myself,” says Busta to MTV. “You get a lot of opportunities to do things, and I try to represent myself in a way that’s not going to let people down, but at the same time I’m never going to do the same old sh**. Flipmode has always been about flipping any expectations you may have at any given moment.”

Over time Busta’s music has veered away from the original thought provoking rhymes of his early career though some claim that in It Ain’t Safe No More, he revisits the “lyrical integrity” he had as a teenager. While all of hip hop music struggles to remain relevant in a national climate that desperately needs clear voices speaking vision to our youth, Busta is not about to turn his back on the bling-bling lifestyle depicted in so many songs and videos. In response to the question of whether hip hop will ever return to its roots of more socially aware lyrics from the 1980’s or if it will continue to move towards a culture of escapist party anthems, he had this to say. “Hip hop has always been a combination of both. It’s always been one of the realest news channels and sources of information—Chuck D called it black America’s CNN. Hip hop reflects the truth, and the problem is that hip hop exposes a lot of the negative truth that society tries to conceal. It’s a platform where we could offer information, but it’s also an escape.”

Some of us long to hear him use words of defiance to uplift the youth, reminiscent of the rhymes he and Flipmode Squad threw down in “Rastaman Chant”, his contribution to the Chant Down Babylon Bob Marley tribute CD. But, as we try to cope with the hard core realities of 21st century Bush-ism, we need Busta Rhymes and his unyielding optimism to keep bringing us real laughter, phat beats and that ol’ school party vibe.