“It was one thing to already be a high-energy nigga, but now, not only can I exert the energy, but I can also control how I exert the shit,” he growls. “From the stage to sex, you busting a nut, and you still standing up like a muthafuckin’ iron horse, knee deep in the ass again like you didn’t even bust off!”
The room laughs at his iron horse comparison, and he cackles right along.
Meet the “new” Busta Rhymes. The one he wants you to see: The guy with the chiseled body and harder attitude, the flossed-out MC who casually wears a half-million dollars worth of jewelry at any given time, the radical rapper who shaved the hair he’s been growing since 1989 and repackaged himself anew. “I needed to shed the weight of the negative dumb shit,” he says. “That’s really what the shedding [cutting the hair] process was. It was the symbolism of me being reborn.”
Nowadays, his toothy, expressive smile is often framed as a cynical smirk. But even without the hair and the implied negativity he left lying on the floor of the barbershop, he still finds himself in tight situations—the kinds of situations you would never have associated with a former Leader of the New School.
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Also in VIBE's June 2006 issue:
Next: Cheri Dennis, Che'nelle, Keite Young, and Sa-Ra. Social Study - Miles from her native Barbados, Rihanna feels her way through newfound fame. Rebecca Couie takes notes as the barely legal cutie crams to understand boys, music, and basketball etiquette. Oh Snap - While Dem Franchize Boyz and D4L fight about who started it, fans are snapping, leaning, and rocking to the sounds. In the first of a three-part series that explores emerging music scenes, Rondell Conway goes to the heart of Bankhead to see what's poppin'. Goddess: Playing The Game - As a former B-ball star, Hoopz has moves on and off the hard wood. But this Flavor of Love winner is still waiting for the big score. Revolutions: Ice Cube, Rihanna, Gnarls Barkley, The Isley Brothers featuring Ronal Isley a.k.a. Mr. Biggs, Nelly Furtado, Cam'ron Presents: Duke Da God, and Murs.
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