Home/Rappers/Male/Busta Rhymes

Busta Rhymes

Trevor Smith has one of the most physically demanding deliveries in rap and has sustained it for thirty years. He is also, alongside Missy Elliott and Hype Williams, largely responsible for what rap videos looked like in the late 1990s.

Early life and Leaders of the New School

Smith grew up in Brooklyn and Long Island and formed Leaders of the New School as a teenager. The group's appearance on A Tribe Called Quest's "Scenario" produced a closing verse that is still routinely named among the best guest verses in rap, and effectively ended the group by making one member a star.

Solo career

The Coming arrived in 1996 with "Woo Hah!! Got You All in Check", followed by When Disaster Strikes, E.L.E. and Anarchy. He moved to Aftermath for The Big Bang, and has continued releasing since, including a well-received late-career return.

What Busta Rhymes is known for musically

Speed and control. He can move between double-time and half-time inside a bar, and his breath control is the thing technical rappers point at. His voice is also simply loud in a way that cuts through any production.

Videos and visual identity

His run of Hype Williams videos in the late 1990s — fish-eye lenses, saturated colour, elaborate costume — defined the era's visual language and pushed rap video budgets to a scale the genre had not seen before.

Album discography

The Coming (1996), When Disaster Strikes... (1997), E.L.E. (Extinction Level Event) (1998), Anarchy (2000), Genesis (2001), It Ain't Safe No More... (2002), The Big Bang (2006), Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God (2020) and Blockbusta (2023).

Notable songs

"Woo Hah!! Got You All in Check", "Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See", "Gimme Some More", "Break Ya Neck", "Pass the Courvoisier Part II" with P. Diddy and Pharrell, and the "Scenario" verse that started everything.

Influence and legacy

He made technical, high-speed rapping commercially viable at a point when the charts favoured slower delivery, and his visual work with Hype Williams set the standard for rap video production for a decade. His longevity is unusual: the 2020 album was widely treated as a genuine return rather than a nostalgia exercise.

Flipmode Squad and Conglomerate

He built the Flipmode Squad around himself in the late 1990s, giving Rampage, Rah Digga, Spliff Star and others a platform, and later founded The Conglomerate. Rah Digga's Dirty Harriet remains the most critically regarded record to come out of that camp.

Working with Hype Williams

The video partnership is inseparable from the music. Fish-eye lenses, saturated colour, elaborate costume and choreography turned records like "Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See" and "Gimme Some More" into visual events, and pushed rap video budgets to a scale the genre had not previously justified.

Later career and return

After a quieter stretch through the 2010s he released his tenth album, Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God, on 30 October 2020 to strong reviews, having visibly reworked his physical conditioning to sustain the delivery. It had been announced in 2014 and shelved for six years. Blockbusta followed in 2023. Very few rappers have kept a technically demanding style intact into a fourth decade.

Frequently asked

Where is Busta Rhymes from?

Smith grew up in Brooklyn and Long Island and formed Leaders of the New School as a teenager.