Busta Rhymes is no stranger to the studio, and his versatility has allowed him to explore many different songwriting avenues. For that reason, none of his classic singles seem to resemble each other, a testament to Busta’s highly creative mind. Today, Pitchfork has shared a new video feature with the Dungeon Dragon, in which he breaks down his process bringing some of his classic singles, including the Dr. Dre produced “Break Ya Neck” off Genesis, “I Know What You Want” off It Ain’t Safe No More, and most recently the Kendrick Lamar-assisted “Look Over Ya Shoulder” off ELE2.
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“When I did [“Break Ya Neck”] I was in the middle of shooting the Halloween movie,” reflects Busta. “Dr. Dre was shooting Training Day. I had two days with him in the studio, so I slept in the studio and stayed the entire forty-eight hours. Dr. Dre is so meticulous and he’s such a micromanager he’ll have you say a line over forty or fifty times. One line, before you move on. I was lucky enough in this particular process across these two days to actually get these five songs off without Dre being in the recording session the entire time.”
“He would step out, and that would give me a little more freedom to do it the way I like to do it,” continues Busta. “But when Dre is in the room with you he’s so meticulous about each thing that sometimes it makes the process a little more challenging, but the end result that much more phenomenal.” Upon hearing the uptempo beat, Busta knew exactly how he had to approach it. “He trusted my judgment, and I did it. He didn’t bother none of that process, cause I finessed the skillset to the point where Dre let me take the lead on that.”
“Dre contributed significantly to the chorus,” he reveals. “He literally hummed the way the melody–the flow pattern of it. He was just giving me the navigation system on how to reach the destination. Once we put the words, and we got to the destination, it was party and celebration time because we knew we had it.”
And of course, Busta would go on to work closely with Dre once again on The Big Bang, an album that had him reinventing his entire approach both physically and in the studio; read more on Busta and the Doc’s dynamic making the album right here. In the meantime, check out Pitchfork’s extensive breakdown below, and show some love to Busta Rhymes for giving us so many bangers to begin with.
