Busta Rhymes is one of my favorite artists. Woo Hah!! Got You All in Check brought him into the public (way more than any of his previous work did), while Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See showcased his appreciation for the visual medium. I can’t think of a Busta video that didn’t involve cool effects, wild colors, and several wardrobe changes. The man clearly enjoys making videos, so naturally I was excited to see his new joint Don’t Touch Me Now (Throw Da Water on ‘Em)
I decided that my old video rating criteria was kinda weak. So, instead of the usual beat, video, content, and vocals, I’m going to break it into the track and the video. I’ll still cover the same stuff, but organizationally this is simpler.
The Track: This is the ‘get hype’ track to play at your next blockparty or Friday night pre-game. Instead of club knocking body thumping bass, the percussion is all tablas and bongos. The beat is courtesy of the Hitmen - in case you were wondering.
Vocally, Busta is at his best when he speeds up his delivery. As with Touch It, he varies his flow between slow, fast, soft, and loud. Unlike Touch It, there is no verbal trigger (’Get low Bust’ and ‘Turn it up!’) signaling the change; Busta’s flo is like a sine wave with its crescendos. I noticed very little, if any, namedropping - which is pretty rare in hiphop these days. The flipside is that there isn’t much in the way of a killer punchline either; ‘I keep a smile on my face but carry the Bushmaster!’ is about the best I heard.
The Video: First of all, Spliff Star is still around? WTF? Seriously, Busta - dude has been in like every one of your videos but gets ZERO rhyme time, and he looks like a turtle. Spliff must be the most patient hype man ever - its been over 10 years since we first saw him.
Anyway - this video is seriously all about ‘what else can we get Busta to put on?’ Homie rocks no less than 5 different hats, 3 wigs, and 6 different outfits. I bet dude has bespoke suits from Saville Row too. The newscaster wig and the King Kong outfit are hilarious.
The treatment for the video went something like this: We’ll take Busta, Spliff, some unrelated sets, a trailer full of ridiculous outfits, a camera, the entourage, a couple ladies, and a fire hose and let them go wild for a few hours. None of the vignettes relate to each other. I think the director had five or six mediocre ideas and decided to film all of them even though the song was only 3.5 minutes long.
Touch It had the same basic video with more girls. Maybe Busta feels that the music video is becoming less and less relevant? More importantly - what do you think?
The Bottom Line: An accessible party track with an unrelated video. 3 out of 5 potential heatrocks (if I had such a scale)
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