7:34 p.m. - 2003-10-23
when i used to hustle and carry weight
date went great! it really did. she's totally super cool, and the conversation flowed smoothly, and i think we have many things in common. the big question is, do we have being attracted to each other in common? (i realize that that is a horrible sentence but i asfdsiofjadsoifj.) we loaned each other books and talked of life and mud and urbanism and suchforth. i think it went well. she'll make a fine friend. now i must get food before survivor party begins. in the meantime you get, yes, another song that time forgot, i think we're up to #4 now? i'm not sure. here you go.
***
Song: Fire / Get Out!!
Artist: Busta Rhymes
Album: Anarchy
Sample Lyric: "Whose impossible folding flow /ain't a thing in the world that ain't culpable so so"
Ampresands (out of 5): & & & & (Fire) / & & & (Get Out!!)
2000's Anarchy, in retrospect, marked a turning point of sorts for Busta Rhymes - simultaneously a last stand for the wacky, bouncy rapping and songcraft that had infused nearly all of his 90's hits, and a step forward into the tougher, grittier, guest-star-laden, and in this reviewer's opinion more annoying material that has thus far been his stock in trade for the 2000's. Think about it: do songs like "Pass The Courvousier" and "Baby If You Give It To Me" really have the classic groove of "Gimme Some Mo'" or "Put All Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See?" Of course Busta could only play the zany clown for so long, and I'm not getting on his case so much for moving away from that persona as for doing it so generically. Busta Rhymes singles used to have a tremendous degree of uniqueness to them. I would love to be able to hear them at the Busta concert that's taking place tomorrow, but unfortunately I'll be getting my wisdom teeth out - so instead I'm just going to listen to these two last stabs of Busta's earlier tradition, and write about them.
"Get Out!!" (that's with two exclamation points, as with "Bladow!!" and "Salute da Gods!!", both from the same album) is the weaker of Anarchy's two singles, but not by much, and only because its chorus revolves around samples of a chorus of singing children. A full two years after Jay-Z's "Hard Knock Life" singlehandedly made it impossible for any rapper to ever use that gimmick again and not be seen as a knockoff. The beat is a little bit flat as well, and as usual Busta seems to be rapping about very little in particular, but it comes off pretty well and he gets in some good lines, especially the part about making it possible for people to "become the wealthiest, healthiest, and bring the fire that'll reach about a thousand degrees Celsius!" Too bad he didn't use that in "Fire," where it would have fit with the theme.
Speaking of which, "Fire" is a far superior song to "Get Out!!", which is odd, because it completely screws up my "goofy Busta=good, hard-edged Busta=bad" dichotomy. Goofy Busta, represented here by "Get Out!!", gets circles run around him by hard-edged Busta, in the form of the off-kilter, metallic, driven "Fire," which has to be one of the most tragically overlooked items in Busta's singles discography. There isn't really much of a hook, which is probably why it didn't make it far as a hit, but Busta packs the track with some of his most inventive rhyme sequences, which he manages to roll effortlessly off of the song's insistent but difficult beat. "No I ain't havin' it / Why you grabbin' it, my flow is immaculate / Passionate / when it comes to the fire that you have to get / Then I tackle it / and kill like we Jackal and Jaffolit / Rob n*****s and give it to the church so they can raffle it" is only one of the extraordinary sequences of unusual rhymes. I mean, come on! Jackal and Jaffolit! Church so they can raffle it! I love it. It'd be worth going to the concert just to hear this one�.but again: wisdom teeth. A terrible shame.
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