VMP Magazine

There were only five years left. When Busta Rhymes made his mark in 1991, on A Tribe Called Quest’s “Scenario,” almost instantly heads were clamoring for his full-length debut. A playful and furious whirling dervish of baby dreads and gruff boisterousness, Busta made a quantum leap on Tribe’s single with bars that were so forward-looking that, in the video, even the colors on his shirt seemed to be in perpetual motion. Busta Rhymes was suddenly occupying everyone’s world just off of one unforgettable verse. 

Not for nothing are Capone and Noreaga posed on the cover of 1997’s stellar The War Report in Timberland boots and fatigues: The brolic rhymes and murky sounds — all trunk-rattling bass and angular soul slabs — boldly announce that they got it out the mud. But they flex their street bona fides with cocksure ease, making every gully line feel buoyant and joyful and somehow palatable to both all-day corner standers and artsy types willing to blow a few bands on a deadstock Supreme tee. Their 1996 single “Stick You” is a robbing-season manifesto whose twinkling piano gives it a moody gangster-flick ambiance — it’s the aural equivalent to some loud-ass project kids acting up in a theater that only screens art films.