Busta Rhymes, Big Daddy Kane, & Conway The Machine – “Slap”

Busta Rhymes occupies a singular, special place in rap history. He was a crossover hitmaker in the peak-MTV ’90s era, but even then, he had plenty of ties to old-school titans. Over the years, Busta has kept tabs on new movements and done his best to stay relevant, but he seems especially excited whenever a new rapper shares his reverence for the genre’s history. Busta sounds perfectly at home on just about an kind of beat, and his gravelly, electrified roar is always instantly memorable. He just loves to rap, and it’s a pleasure to hear him still at it.

Today, Busta has come out with a new single that works as a kind of generational link. On “Slap,” Busta teams up with Griselda standout Conway The Machine — not a young guy, but a relative newcomer to rap fame — and late-’80s king Big Daddy Kane. Producer Marley Marl, Kane’s old collaborator and one of the all-time greats, uses that same sample from James Brown’s “The Payback” that En Vogue used on “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It).”

It’s a lot of fun to hear these three guys going in together in 2022, and it’s especially fun to hear Big Daddy Kane rhyming “blasphemy” with “David Cassidy” and talking about “some of y’all got that Fetty Wap vision.” There’s a good energy to this one. Below, check out the video, which Busta Rhymes co-directed with DreFilms and which shows its three stars hanging out with women who are way too young for them.

Busta Rhymes also appears alongside Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, and Stove God Cooks on “Science Class,” a track from Westside Gunn’s new album 10.