Busta Rhymes - Look Over Your Shoulder

When I arrive my theme music got a pound to it and when I leave my shadow got a sound to it.

Album: Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God [10th album]
Recorded: Manhattan, New York
Genre: Hip Hop, East Coast Hip Hop
Album Release: October 30th 2020
Length: 4.08
Producer: Nottz
Vocalist: Busta Rhymes [age 48], Kendrick Lamar
Label: Conglomerate Records [owned by Busta Rhymes - formerly Flip Mode Records]

Lyric Video

Charts, Streams & Sales

Spotify: Over 30 million
YouTube Music: Over 11 million

Credits

Sampled from John Cameron - Sympathy (1986)

Details

• Busta Rhymes was forced to spend the night in a recording studio after a blizzard broke out in New York city. In 2016, the producer Nottz had sent a load of beats to Busta Rhymes hadn't got around to listening to them. It just so happened that Busta had the beats on him while he was stranded in the studio. 
  
• This album is a sequel to an earlier effort by Busta Rhymes: Extinction Level Event (1998). There is a 22 year gap between the albums.
  
  
• Busta Rhymes is a member of the Five Percent Nation.
  
  
• The hacker group Music Mafia released the song in 2018 after obtaining it illegally.
  
  
• The track is basically two rappers rapping about how good they are at rapping over a lively beat. What stands out is the complex and highly dextrous rhyme schemes. As the son of two Jamaican immigrants Busta Rhymes has frequently produced highly energetic songs which were often in contrast to the moody, atmospherics found elsewhere on the east coast. The same is true here.
  
  The track is only 78 beats per minute but you couldn't fall asleep to it for a second. It feels kinetic thanks the bullet flow and commanding presence of the emcees. A lot of lo-fi, atmospheric hip hop has lyricists who blend into the beat and don't say anything worth hearing. On this track, the dense multisyllables and wordplay demand attention and that's what makes it work.
  
  You can only appreciate fully the quality of the rapping if it has your undivided attention. It isn't party music because it requires concentration but it's still rowdy in the way we have become accustomed to from Busta. It's a thinking mans kind of rowdy. Rowdy for the discerning gentleman.
  
  Of course, on a track that features two of the top 20 rappers of all time, rhyming one after the other with long verses then people will compare and decide who was better. That's not really the point. Rappers can be different it doesn't necessarily make one better than the other but if I had to choose then I would say Busta. It's close, but when Busta slides into his "harder, the martyr the father" flow that comes in at 3.30 (see above) that seals the deal for me. He takes it to a whole other level. On another record I might say that I prefer Kendrick but on this one it's Busta Rhymes hand down.
  
  
• Stand up comic Chris Rock features throughout the record as a souped up hype man threatening to inflict all sorts of shenanigans and skullduggery on anyone who would dare mess with Busta Rhymes.
  
  
  
  Lyrics