Artist: Busta Rhymes
Interviewer: Alexander Fruchter

In part one of this two part interview, Busta Rhymes spoke candidly on his decision to cut off his dreads, the meaning behind the new album title, and the state of Hip Hop today. In part two, the former Leader of the Nu School discusses the importance of education, and the showcases the difference between going to school and seeking knowledge.

Similar to the way in which he shed his dreads, Busta is able to shed some of his protective armor, and reveal his inner inner thoughts, and ideas. Read on to get a further glimpse into the real Busta Rhymes, you might just see a side of the emcee you didn’t think existed.

Busta Rhymes: There’s so many other ways of becoming that rich dude that it’s something that you do have to paint the picture of. School don’t teach you how to be rich. Hip Hop teach you how to be rich. Hip Hop don’t necessarily give you a blue print on how to get a million dollars. School gives you a lot of education, but you go to colleges and sometimes owe a lot of tuition and not even have a degree in a marketable skill. That’s the let down that I can’t f**k with. I never get the image of a rich person through school. I never get that through school. I’ve never known anyone who’s gotten that through school. You might have been told about, there’s success stories about certain people who’ve done certain things, and accomplished certain things, but we’re never really given that as an example to try to live up to, or try to follow, or try to accomplish the goals of the next man in terms of success stories from a financial and economical standpoint. Hip Hop paints such a picture of what it is to be a rich person, and you don’t necessarily have to have the requirements that are created as obstacles for you if you just apply yourself in ways that are uncompromising.

SoundSlam: What your’e saying is the main reason I wanted to become a teacher. [It was] to show the kids that it’s not about ‘education,’ but it’s about knowledge and acquiring knowledge. We have a saying in the room, “Knowledge Is King,” because that’s really what it’s about, knowledge. It’s not about going through the ranks of education. A lot of kids don’t see the success of someone going through school and getting rich. That also cycles into them not putting all their energy into [school], and not seeing that as a viable way, and it’s kind of a cycle. I totally understand what you’re saying. We’re on the same wavelength I feel.

Busta Rhymes: Absolutely. But don’t get it f**ked up. I got children, brother, and they can’t come home from school with any compromised effort in their school report. When that s**t happen, everything that comes with the perks of being my child is taken away on an extreme level. Discipline and the education in my crib is like some unbelievable s**t, and I’m not compromising it. I look at my children everyday, all of them ain’t prone to music. All them ain’t prone to music. My oldest son is on some basketball s**t. He ain’t thinking about no records. So it’s like, ‘OK. What are you going to do to make sure that you solidify your slot as an athlete being that you need to learn how to count your muthf***in’ money, and operate your business, and run your corporation, and your own estate, in addition to being an athlete? What you gonna do to acquire that? Your school better be Gillette razor-blade sharp when I see them report card grades, or else you not even playing no ball.’…I understand the importance of it. In addition to the fact that what I built and worked so hard to create and have as an established corporate business that’s generating revenue that has been successfully taking care of my family for the fourteen-fifteen years. Nobody ain’t have to work for nobody outside of working with me and Flipmode entertainment. There’s gonna be a day when I ain’t gonna want to be in this s**t like this no more. I’m gonna have to pass my s**t down. My kids better have they s**t right on an educational level, on an informational level, on a knowledge of self level, and a knowledge in general level. To just know how to apply their business-savvy into continuing the legacy of my established business as well, even if they ain’t artists that’s rhyming. They can just be executives that sit behind a desk and monitor that paper work, and count the money right to keep that business running. And the only way to do that is to acquire the sufficient and substantial amount of knowledge and information about every piece of knowledge that’s accessible to them, every piece of knowledge that they’re willing to go as far as it takes to research to get the information that they need. I instill that brutally in the crib, even though I might have dropped out of school at 10th grade. Because the education might not have done the best thing for me, but the knowledge did. The education is what fueled the spark for me to want to research whatever I didn’t get out of school.

SoundSlam: Exactly…

Busta Rhymes: That knowledge supercedes education, because at one point you ain’t going to school no more. When you ain’t going to school no more, for the rest of your life, which is a whole lot more years than your school life, you got to continue to do the knowledge. Doing the knowledge education supercedes whatever amount of time you might be investing in school. School, even if you going to be a doctor, is probably until your about in your early thirties, or mid thirties. But then you might live to see seventy years old. That’s a whole other forty something years you got to learn s**t, and adjust to the turning points of the society structure and the way the world is functioning. So, I’m pro everything you just said bro. It might seem contradictory to the way I live my life, but it actually isn’t.

SoundSlam: I read somewhere that you sometimes felt pressure to be the animated Busta Rhymes, and this is a chance to give people that other side of you. Are you going to give people that other side of you? What are fans going to get on Big Bang that they might not have gotten before?

Busta Rhymes: I never gave people me. And what I mean by that is, I’ve given you me but I’ve give you me that I wanted to give. I never gave the people the me that would help people understand who I was, how I became who I am, and what made me the Busta Rhymes the world grew to know and love. And that’s part of what I was touching on earlier in the discussion, it was about how I was dealing with so much bulls**t that made me feel like I needed to cut the dreads because it was reminding me of the bulls**t I had finally gotten past. Now that them situations have calmed down, and I’m in a safe haven as far as them situations is concerned, I ain’t got to worry about no negative repercussion, I could comfortably welcome the whole universe into that area of my life now. Because them situations are all closed chapters in my book. So, now I could share with people about the stories about the muthaf***a that I had in my circle that might see me and they see my moms and they greet her respectful because they’re supposed to be my friends and grew up around a n***g, but behind her back they see her son and give me [dirty looks]. In one sense we’re supposed be cool, but these n***as are really wolves in sheep’s clothing. Time always tells it, and eventually when the time comes, when the truth is manifest, your dogs start to front and surround you and come out of their sheep’s skin and act all different around you. [I will] get into them stories, get into stories about s**t about my family, my moms, my pops, the relationship, the struggle between me having to make a choice as far as do I want to live by the example that they lead for me? Do I want to say ‘f**k that and do me?’ Saying f**k that and doing me can be real costly though. You follow their examples, a lot of times they done stepped in the s**t piles so that you can avoid stepping in them because they did it for you. But then when you to be rebellious and act like you know some s**t more than they know, you got a s**t pile of your own you got to step in. You probably ain’t really ready to step in it. You probably ain’t built to step in it, and you probably ain’t really conditioned to step in it. Then when you step in the s**t, and you knee deep in the s**t pile, that’s when you start calling on your family to come help pull you out of there. You’re parents don’t really got family to help pull them out of there. They moms and they pop’s probably dead already. So, live and learn by the example set for you. They could pull themselves out of they own s**t pile, you got to learn how to do that’s**t too. Taking the shortcut sometimes ain’t really worth gambling. S**t like that!

Just letting people into the world of my personal side because I never did. I always, especially when I was going through my personal s**t, it was so much dumb s**t that I wasn’t proud of and I wasn’t happy about, that it was like, ‘damn. This s**t is so f**ked up that I’m going to put an extra smile on my face when I do this video, or when I perform. I’m going to animate out a little wilder just to protect myself from n***as seeing me in a vulnerable or weak state. Because I’m unhappy about some real life s**t that I’m dealing with.’ I ain’t in them spaces no more. I’m in such a great space, a new space, such a refreshing space, that I can now talk about all of them situations and not feel no signs of slight weakness or vulnerability. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, cause that’s part of being human, that’s part of being a man, part of being a woman, part of being grown. But, as men we got that masculine s**t, that testosterone s**t, that macho s**t, you don’t want nobody to see your weaker side. But when you in a comfortable space, and you’ve grown and are that much more sure about your s**t and yourself, you feel that much better showing muthf***as the weaker side, the more personal side, the side that’s a little more sentimental to everybody because they can identify with the struggle. Especially because for a lot of muthaf***as, you’re probably speaking for them. When you get into those songs and those kinds of concepts and stories on your own record the people can hear your s**t and they feel connected in a new way because they see you identify with their pain. They feel your pain, and you feel theirs. And indirectly, you are directly communicating to each other. That’s the side of Busta Rhymes that I’m giving to n***as in abundance. I just look forward to seeing how the world is ready to see this s**t.