Busta Rhymes
Extinction Level Event - The Final World Front
Flipmode/Elektra
March 1999 / Issue #114

Record Report
Like a spaced-out urban pallbearer, Busta Rhymes has been preaching about the apocalypse ever since he became a solo artist. "Where my niggas is at? Where my bitches is at?" he asked at the end of Puffy's "Victory" single. But just to make sure the floss is gone, Extinction Level Event: The Final World Front is filled with enough distorted snare drums and crashing cymbals, cataclysmic explosions and homicidal laser beams to no doubt set the soundscape for our latest hardcore era.

"This is how we rebuild shit from the underground up," Busta growls on "Tear Da Roof Off." And thanks to young beat bangers like Swizz, Nottz and the underrated DJ Scratch, ELE is a full-blast sensory assault designed to play loud without apology.

Lyrically, Busta does a lot with what is essentially a soundbyte style, but the rhythm and flow of his rhymes stay the same throughout most of the cuts. And that, unfortunately, is where ELE suffers. After about an hour in, it's too easy to tune out songs you feel you've already heard, and the two attempts to switch it up and slow it down, "Do The Bus A Bus" and "What's It Gonna Be?!", just don't work.

Still, like the overlapping images of Hitchcock's Psycho, whose horrified strings Scratch used for the hot-to-death "Gimme Some More," Extinction Level Event is the product of an artist who has mastered his medium and taken us a little closer to a new reality. Remember: there's only one year left!

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