Backspin: Busta Rhymes — When Disaster Strikes… (1997)
Hip-Hop’s foremost futurist embraced disruption on the eve of the 21st Century. (85/100)
Originally published 11/5/22 on Medium.
Busta Rhymes was the perfect MC to usher in the new millennium. It wasn’t just the persistent fascination with a dystopian near-future informing his rhymes as far back as Leaders of the New School’s 1993 sophomore outing, T.I.M.E.. The Long Island MC’s frenetic microphone presence itself seemed to embody the controlled chaos mounting just beneath the surface of an analog world wrestling with the existential implications of an encroaching digital age.
Busta’s countdown to armageddon began on his 1996 debut, The Coming (“There’s only 5 years left!”), and 1998’s E.L.E. (Extinction Level Event) was the most explicit in its predictions of end times. But it’s 1997’s sophomore opus, When Disaster Strikes…, that best embodies the angst, agitation, and dark excitement growing increasingly palpable the world over as Y2K approached.
“Repeatedly it has been reported that there will be a time soon approaching that major disaster will be striking all levels of existence,” warns a heavily reverbed Lord Have Mercy atop ominous strings at the start of the album’s three part intro.
As the monologue continues, Mercy introduces another layer.
“It has also been reported that this disastrous thing will be approaching in the form of many, as in squad, as in Flipmode Squad.”
Deftly, the power has been reclaimed, with Busta and his crew now positioned as the disruptors. It was an opportunity and a burden placed on all of us coming of age at the dawn of the new millennium. We were expected to disrupt, but not told how, where or why. That tension comes into visceral focus on the deceptively foreboding opener, “The Whole World Lookin’ At Me”.
The whole world lookin’ at me
Watchin’ and waitin’ to see
If I fulfill my destiny
An uncharacteristically pensive Busta sings the chorus atop the driving beat. Keys escalate, mounting a sonic tension that never fully resolves, leaving Busta’s tourettic flurries of frantic syllables to simmer. He paints mainly in broad strokes, splashing the sonic canvas with scattershot couplets referencing mass destruction, false prophets, and séances. As a table setter, it’s devastatingly effective, evoking a mad scramble to leave a mark on a world awash in information but increasingly short on meaning.
Disruption gives way to the struggle for mere existence on “Survival Hungry”. The explosiveness of Busta’s delivery obscures his masterful modulation as he darts in and out of every crevice of the haltingly minimalistic beat. It’s as if he’s scrambling to find a foothold on a rocky landscape where the stones keep moving.
The title track rounds out the masterful opening trifecta, all produced with brooding intensity by DJ Scratch, effectively synthesizing the themes of the first two. The promise of possibility is juxtaposed against the treachery of the unknown as Busta slides effortlessly from a composed melodic flow to a staccato rhythm punctuated with guttural bursts as he wrestles with the weight and wonder of a generational moment of reckoning:
Practice your rhyme or be the local practitionist
Well, you can try being a doctor or being a local obstetricianist
See, you can BE somethin’
Quit tryin’ to work so f***in’ hard towards nothin’
This rhyme s*** was never designed for every swollen muffin
YA! I’m singin’…
Why y’all n****s think that y’all could really see my Squad?
And if we hit you hard, that’s when you feel the power of the God
Do it right, and big up my peeps and A-alikes
On a line repel, especially feel when disaster strikes
Extremely delicate like the blowing out of candlelights
The quiet killing surprises n****s whenever they wanna fight
Following through on his vow to disrupt through rhyme, “So Hardcore” and “Rhymes Galore” are pure lyrical exhibitionism with Busta flexing impossibly elusive flows over tracks that marry traditional beats with futuristic flourishes. Busta Rhymes is uniquely able to wrap himself in the asymmetric digital bassline of the former and coast atop the jittery keys of the latter, all while remaining anchored in the vintage boom-bap of the drums.
The album’s preponderance of party tracks follow much the same formula, harkening back to the body rocking playfulness of first generation hip-hop while infusing it with the digital intensity of a high stakes world. In Busta’s dystopia, dance floor excursions are at once escape, rebellion, and coping mechanism.
Both “There’s Not a Problem My Squad Can’t Fix” and “The Body Rock” crib their crowd-participation-friendly hooks from early ’80s favorites (InDeep’s “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life” and Kurtis Blow’s “Rappin’ Blow” respectively). The nostalgia provides a welcomed dash of familiarity to help orient us within Busta’s manic experimentation. Yet, neither song feels vital on an album that overstays its welcome by at least 10 minute, particularly sitting in the shadows of the future-forward smash singles.
A quarter century after its release, “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See” retains every bit of the vibrancy that set airwaves and dance floors ablaze as the world partied toward 1999. Pre-dawn and post apocalypse conjoin in the off-kilter rhythm of then up-start producers Shamello and Buddah. Busta rides the stuttering drums with uncharacteristic restraint, building momentum through syllabic precision rather than vocal bombast. It’s the moment Busta solidified his stature as more than hip-hop’s most colorful character, but one of its premier MCs.
Hit you with no delayin’, so what you sayin’, yo?
Silly with my nine milli, what the deally, yo?
When I be on the mic, yes I do my duty, yo
Wild up in the club like we wild in the studio
You don’t wanna violate, n****, really and truly, yo
My main thug n**** named Julio, he moody, yo
Type of n**** that’ll slap you with the toolie, yo
B**** n****s scared to death, act fruity, yo
F*** that, look at shorty, she a little cutie, yo
The way she shake it make me wanna get all in the booty, yo
Tappin’ mistresses, bangin’ b****es in videos
Whylin’ with my freak like we up in the freak shows
Hit you with the s***, make you feel it all in your toes
Hot s*** got all you n****s in wet clothes
Stylin’ my metaphors when I formulate my flows
If you don’t know, you f***in’ with lyrical player pros
“Dangerous” ratchets up the tempo with a propulsive digital drum track. True to iconoclastic form, Busta rides the ebbs and flows of the edgily robotic synth line rather than the beat. Yet he still manages to land his rhyming syllables impeccably on the snare. Listeners able to restrain themselves from dancing to Rashad Smith and Armando Colon’s endlessly infectious track invariably found themselves marveling at how Busta’s delivery could simultaneously feel so loose and so precise.
The digital age escapism of the singles is served stark contrast in “Things We Be Doin’ For Money” (Parts 1 and 2). A routine robbery escalates into an all out war, as two crews of have-nots scramble to devour the same rapidly shrinking piece of a pie hoarded by the haves.
The ferocity of Busta’s delivery captures the bubbling desperation of a time when material wealth was ostentatiously flaunted, even as rising economic inequality yanked it further and further from reach of the masses. A young Anthony Hamilton, in his first high profile guest spot, offers a gut bucket coda, his gospel-inspired vocals reflecting the religious fervor with which the dollar was worshipped in a moment when traditional faith was beginning to feel like a relic of the analog era.
Perhaps the most unexpected highlight is “One,” a breezily soulful duet with Erykah Badu that cuts through the angst and intensity like a ray of sunshine. Sampling Stevie Wonder’s seminal “Love’s In Need of Love Today,” Busta and Badu riff on Stevie’s message, positioning familial and communal unity as the antidote to the fear and uncertainty of the impending era. The pair’s playful chemistry showcases rarely seen dimensions of both artists, with neo-soul’s high priestess even harkening back to her MC days to bust a few rhymes of her own. “One” is the hit that never was, Badu’s label refusing to clear its release as a single.
When Disaster Strikes… falls just short of the greatness that was within its grasp had Busta lyrically unpacked some of the thematic implications of the album’s overarching concept. Instead we mainly get fragments and shards of a thesis struggling to come together, much like visions for the 21st Century itself in late ‘97. As such, the album viscerally captures the feel of the moment, but fails to make a cohesive statement about it. (E.L.E. is similarly hamstrung.)
In hindsight, the magnitude of the missed opportunity looms even larger. The ensuing quarter century has, in fact, born out many of the very disruptions Busta alludes to — from heightening economic tension to religious fanaticism, and ultimately the re-emergence of mass destruction as a viable threat.
Still, When Disaster Strikes… remains arguably the strongest front-to-back long player from one of hip-hop’s most dynamic artists, deftly balancing commercial accessibility and daring innovation. It’s also one of the most assured offerings from the Post-Renaissance coda of the late ‘90s, succeeding by embracing the uncertainty of the time rather than running from it.
By the Numbers
Production: 9
Lyrics (how the words are put together): 8.5
Delivery & Flow: 10
Content (Substance): 8
Cohesiveness: 8.5
Consistency: 9
Originality: 9
Listenability: 9
Impact/Influence: 7
Longevity: 7
Total — 85
Backspin is a look back at the albums that shaped and defined hip-hop. It explores what made them resonate, the impact they had on the culture, and where they fit in today’s ever-expanding hip-hop canon.
Man I love this album so damn much