I wrote these words as a joke when Trevor “Busta Rhymes” Smith re-released his tenth album, Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God, a mere three days after it originally hit streaming services. He waited a little bit longer to drop this deluxe edition, which tacks an additional four songs onto the Reloaded version of the project, bringing it up to thirty tracks, which is far too many for Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God to ever feel cohesive.
Busta announced this deluxe edition on Black Friday, supplementing what has retroactively turned into his magnum opus with four more tracks, with the intent being for the man to reach as broad an audience as is even possible in 2020. Our chosen culture looks a lot different today than it did the last time Trevor managed to release an album – hell, music itself doesn’t sound the way that it used to. Busta’s been in the game for a minute, though, so the evolution of hip hop hasn’t been lost on him: you can hear the progression of the genre in his solo projects, while the man himself acclimates to new environments as needed while staying true to his Leaders of the New School roots. So my issue with there being a new version of Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God isn’t so much that he’s trying to appeal to the kids – it’s that, I mean, he could have just released an EP, man.
So we’ll meet back up in a month or so to discuss the next quartet of songs Trevor finds on an old compact disc he finds underneath the passenger seat of his truck, okay?
27. CZAR (REMIX) (FEAT. M.O.P. & CJ)
A track which seems to exist only to correct an egregious error made by our host, this remix to “Czar” actually does feature M.O.P. in more than a “Trevor sampled their voices”-capacity, and while Lil’ Fame and Billy Danze both fill their contributions with references to the original song so what I’m about to say wouldn’t have made any sense anyway, I still would have preferred it if they had appeared on the O.G. Rockwilder’s instrumental remains the same, Busta knowing enough to not fuck with a good thing this time around, and our host drops a brand new verse that is so angry and excitable that the spittle will drip from your earbud speakers. His sentences mostly make no sense when written out, but he sounds like he’s fucking starving, which is nice, and his required show of hip hop dominance comes when he claims that, “N----a beg me to chill and go make more records with Mariah,” which is a funny flex, but a flex nonetheless. There’s only one misstep I can think of, but it’s pretty noticeable: for whatever reason, Busta cedes the final verse spot to Staten Island newcomer CJ, whose rap name is so bland that I couldn’t believe it hadn’t already been put into circulation before now, and he sounds entirely out of his depth, trying to follow Trevor’s cadence before giving up and carving out his own lane, one which should be shut down for maintenance. I literally laughed out loud at the end of the guest’s verse when he referred to himself as “the young czar” because, I mean, come on, one of your highest-profile songs to date came about while you were working with a convicted child molester, bucko, you’re a clown. Erase CJ’s contribution and you could call “Czar (Remix)” a worthy follow-up. In fact, is anybody interested in doing just that for me?
28. FOLLOW THE WAVE (FEAT. FLIPMODE SQUAD)
Fan service at its finest. Nottz’s instrumental bangs and is absolutely perfect for this type of casual, informal posse cut, one where competition isn’t a priority because everybody gets their own opportunity to talk their shit. (I officially petition for Nottz to gather together a lengthy list of collaborators and fully produce an album filled with randomized posse cuts, Statik Selektah-style. You know you want it.) After some light crooning from Trevor that absolutely will stir up memories of the man’s earliest solo albums, “Follow The Wave” leads us straight to the door of Rampage the Last Boy Scout, followed by Rah Digga and Spliff Star in rapid succession, and all three members of the defunct Flipmode Squad sound excited as shit to be invited back to the party, which, judging by the current events discussed during their respective verses (hell, our host even calls out Trump at one point), must have been thrown very recently, possibly even after the release of the original album. Baby Sham's presence is missed, as are those from the other former members of the Squad (see: Lord Have Mercy, Serious, Roc Marc…. sorry, I couldn’t keep a straight face with that one, Marcy would have sounded terrible on here), but as if to make up for the absence, Busta Rhymes delivers an extra-long verse to close out “Follow The Wave”, his bars unleashed in his calm, rational style that forces the listener to pay very close attention, and he’s obviously enjoying the shit out of this reunion, too. “Follow The Wave” is a much better way to resurrect the concept of the Flipmode Squad than that painful 2018 loosey “Flipmode Squad Meets The Conglomerate”, which featured the various members of Trevor’s Conglomerate crew (including Stove God Cooks, for those of you two clocking all of his previous appearances after having listened to Reasonable Drought) on separate verses while Rampage, Spliff, Sham, Digga, and Busta all shared one toward the end, which made it pretty obvious that he considered this Flipmode shit his past, even though the man hilariously shared much more chemistry with his former friends than his current employees. “Follow The Vibe” is also much more enjoyable to listen to, so I’d recommend you do just that, even though I understand this means that Trevor will now likely incorporate various members of his Conglomerate (such as J-Doe and O.T. Genasis) and probably Roc Marcy, now that I think about it, onto a future revision of Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God, one which is set to hit streaming services before I can even reach the end of this sentence.
29. BLOW A MILLION RACKS
I know, I know, we all should have figured that two-song run was too good to be true, because after “Czar (Remix)” and “Follow The Wave” appeased us old heads, Trevor returns to the club with “Blow A Million Racks”, a Sha Recka production that is exactly as stupid as the song title would indicate. Which I mostly mean as “dumb and uninteresting to listen to”, although there is a portion of the (crappy) hook where I also could mean, “this could be fun to chant along with if I’m ever drunk at a club again after this pandemic fucking ends.” But don’t get it twisted: “Blow A Million Racks” sucks. Trevor’s unyielding need to chase his next club banger isn’t going to end well, but the man keeps fucking trying, and eventually he’ll either realize that being the old guy at the club isn’t much fun, or he’ll die. But he’s not at that point yet, so we have to put up with this kind of tryhard shit, which fits a similar theme and even shares what is basically the same title as a different Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God song, “Blowing the Speakers”. You don’t need to listen to this one, folks, unless you’re really that curious about what I consider to be the “fun” part of the hook, in which case, you can just ask.
30. HEY YOU (FEAT. TRILLIAN)
The thirtieth song on Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God and the final track (so far, anyway – I assume our host still has his fingers crossed) of the evening features Trillian, a member of Trevor’s Conglomerate crew, so good on him for somehow making the cut, but the credits may as well have included Auto-Tune as the second guest, since Auto-Tune is all the fuck over “Hey You”, a song where Busta Rhymes spends most of his time sing-rapping his lines, a direction we all should have seen coming after hearing the man croon during his hooks for the past eighty-odd years. Producer MiniBoom gives our host some melodic trap that isn’t bad, but still feels rather plain and tall, and neither Trevor and Trillian know what to do with it, the former opting to talk his shit while the latter turns in sex rap vocals so heavily enhanced in the studio that he sounds like he’s a computer looking for a partner. A bizarre way to end any album, even one as incredibly disjointed as Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God, but at least this wasn’t the worst Busta Rhymes song in creation or anything. Still, it’s best you two not waste your valuable time with this one.
THE LAST WORD: The four new tracks on Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God (Deluxe Edition) at least fare better than the four Trevor tacked on to the original program on Reloaded. “Follow the Wave” is enjoyable as shit, if not a little bit too long (my guess is that the plan was to have had Baby Sham contribute, but maybe the timing didn’t work out, so Nottz filled the dead air with Busta crooning?), and having both halves of the Mash Out Posse appear on “Czar” is such an obvious gimme that I’m surprised it took Busta this long to put it together. But the remaining two tracks on this revision aren’t worth your time, and their presence continues to tip the scale against Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God and its entertainment value. It is kind of intriguing how Busta Rhymes figured out how to have it both ways: the original album leaked a few weeks early, stirring up nostalgic feelings for heads of a certain era who then discovered how some of our host’s artistic choices deliberately looked to his past while reaching out for the future, but in a nod to how the music industry works today, he’s keeps dropping the same project over and over again, each time with new additions, in an effort to remain a trending topic. Unlike the new songs on Reloaded, however, I can imagine at least “Follow the Wave” appearing on the original album, so Trevor hasn’t yet lost his creative spark. Thank God streaming exists, because if Busta Rhymes expected people to buy his album three different times within one month, there’s no goddamned way he’d be able to walk down the street without someone trying to beat his ass. (They would lose – have you seen how buff Busta is these days? – but still.)
And now the countdown begins for the next revision. Don’t let us down, Trevor.
-Max
RELATED POSTS:
Catch up with Busta Rhymes by clicking on this link.
Trillian is Busta’s son. Obviously he doesn’t share his talent, though. In any case, your review of these 4 tracks is spot on.
ReplyDelete