Busta Rhymes - Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath Of God ALBUM REVIEW
What’s crazy to me is that Busta Rhymes has been teasing Extinction Level Event 2 for so long but finally released it during a pandemic. I remember when he put out Thank You in 2013 which was supposed to be a single for it and then there was a snippet of Pardon My Ways on The Abstract & The Dragon that was supposed to be on ELE2. I also remember when he put out Calm Down with Eminem in 2014 which was supposed to lead up to the album but it didn’t end up leading up to anything. Busta Rhymes hasn’t dropped a proper solo album since Year Of The Dragon in 2012, which was a huge disappointment and I don’t know if even Busta is satisfied with that album because you can’t actually find it anywhere now. He's put out many singles since the album, some decent and some forgettable. He also put out the aforementioned Abstract & The Dragon with Q-Tip which featured some new and old material and then there was the Return Of The Dragon mixtape in 2015 which I still think is really underrated as it featured some of Busta’s best songs in years. Though it had a few skips, the features were mostly great and Busta was making better songs. Recently, Busta has been really delivering great features on projects from Westside Gunn, Roc Marciano and Rapsody. What really made me anticipate this album was the fact that it’s the sequel to his 1998 album Extinction Level Event: The Final World Front, an album that I think is his best one. ELE2 plays like any other Busta Rhymes album in that it is way too long and it is somewhat tied together by some sort of disaster theme but very loosely. I do wish that a lot of the skits were separate tracks and some of the instrumental transitions were put at the start or end instead of just a random interlude like The Young God Speaks. As much as I love Chris Rock, I don’t want to hear him when I relisten to the album. This is what bothered me so much about the intro because the beat was great, Busta’s opening verse was good and Rakim stole the show. That verse made me want to hear a new Rakim album. The song Czar with M.O.P. was kind of disappointing because I expect a lot from a collab song from them (Ready For War is one of my favorite Busta songs) and it was kind of weak. They would’ve sounded better on Outta My Mind. I’ve mentioned in many reviews that it’s really hard to make a good song out of a really famous sample and make it better than the original song. Similar to how he did it with Calm Down, I think he definitely did it with Outta My Mind, which samples Poison by Bell Biv Devoe. I love the energy that Busta brings to this track and how the sample is chopped to go with every word he says. One of my biggest disappointments from this album was the fact that he included Farrakhan on the album. Unlike the intro on Jay Electronica’s A Written Testimony, I didn’t have a problem with anything he said on this album—it is the fact that he is on it and it does not sit right with me. I did like the way that Busta was rhyming on that song though. The song Slow Flow with an old verse from ODB sounds really dated and doesn’t really fit on the album. Oh No was a major skip as it doesn’t fit on the album at all and was not that good. Another song that doesn’t fit on the album is The Don & The Boss, which is a waste of a Vybz Kartel feature. This album is full of features but there are a lot of shorter songs where Busta is just by himself. A lot of these songs are pretty forgettable aside from True Indeed, which is a great DJ Premier-produced song where Busta sounds amazing. Both Q-Tip and Rick Ross had great features. I liked the concept of Best I Can with Rapsody where she and Busta rap split parents of a son. The song YUUUU with Anderson .Paak was a breath of fresh air as it sounds like nothing else either of them have done before and did a great job on the odd and simple beat produced by Anderson. Without a doubt, the best feature on the album comes from Kendrick Lamar Look Over Your Shoulder, a fantastic song produced by Nottz and includes a sample of I’ll Be There by The Jackson 5. Kendrick’s rhyming patterns never fail to amaze me. Busta’s flow on the song was really dope as well. He reunites with Mariah Carey for Where I Belong, which is essentially a song that reworks their previous hit song together. I never liked that song that much and this one is so much better in my opinion. It isn’t as repetitive and the hook is so much better. The chemistry between Mariah and Busta is so much better and the change in production at the end also takes it a notch above. They compliment each other so much better on this song. I knew You Will Never Find Another Me was going to be great because Mary J. Blige and Busta Rhymes have never made a bad song together. Mary has never disappointed me and kept that up with her vocals on this song. Busta Rhymes’s rapping throughout this album is great but the songs themselves, whether its production, a skit or an antisemitic person get in the way of it. ELE2 is a very long album that is kind of a mixed bag. There are a few skips and some forgettable songs but there are a lot of great songs on here that I will definitely return to. It’s not even close to touching the first ELE but it is much better than the few most recent Busta albums.
Fav Tracks: Outta My Mind, True Indeed, YUUUU, Best I Can, Look Over Your Shoulder, You Will Never Find Another Me
