Trevor George Smith Jr., better known by his stage name, Busta Rhymes, celebrates his 49th birthday today.
Born in Brooklyn in 1972, Busta Rhymes later moved with his family to Uniondale, Long Island where he and fellow MCs’ Charlie Brown, Dinco D, and others formed the hip hop group Leaders of The New School who released their first album, A Future Without a Past, in 1991.
It wasn’t until 1995 when Busta’s solo career kicked off. With the release of his debut album, The Coming in 1996 which was highly praised by the hip hop community at the time. Lead singles such as “Woo Hah!! Got You all in Check” ( which was later remixed featuring Ol’ Dirty Bastard) brought Busta Rhymes into the public eye, securing a #8 spot on the Billboard Hot 100.
Busta’s work carried into the 21st century, collaborating with famed hip hop producer Dr. Dre on his fifth studio album Genesis released in 2001. Instead of making a quiet exit from the scene like other MCs from the golden era of hip hop, Busta stayed relevant by continuing to work and collaborate with trending artists of the 2000s.
Continuing to keep the music interesting in 2020, Busta Rhymes delivered his 9th studio album Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God which featured the single “Look Over Your Shoulders’ ft. Kendrick Lamar. For hip hop enthusiasts, “Look Over Your Shoulders” might be the perfect balance of old-school meeting new-school, and it never sounded so good.
2021 marks the 25th anniversary of Busta Rhymes’s debut full-length album, The Coming, which recently received a deluxe reissue.
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