“Woo Hah!! Got You All in Check”: Busta Rhymes’s The Coming Embraces Our Inner Weird Mohith Subbarao Follow Oct 20, 2019 · Unlisted

Weird is not good. Whether it be a nationwide social movement like the counterculture of the 1960s or the individual deviations from dress code, career, and interests, being weird has consistently been frowned upon or even demonized. We all have our own unique qualities but due to either shame or the fear of ostracization, we suppress our desire for experimentation. Busta Rhymes sees the strength and joy of this experimentation on “Woo Hah!! Got You All in Check”, the lead single from his debut album The Coming, an idiosyncratic, jaw-dropping and purely wild track that inspires us to embrace our inner weird.

“Woo Hah!! Got You All in Check” by Busta Rhymes

Busta Rhymes has been weird for a while.

From his outlandish fashion style to his avant-garde hairstyles, Busta Rhymes proudly showcased his quirks long before anyone knew who he was. His obscurity didn’t last long though as he stole the show on “Scenario” off A Tribe Called Quest’s 1991 album The Low End Theory. His eccentric, energetic, and off-kilter delivery coupled with his creative and hilarious rhymes made him an overnight star. He followed this performance with a string of high-profile guest verses before he released his debut album, 1996’s The Coming.

No longer sharing the spotlight, he was ready to show the world who he was.

“When I step up in the place, a-yo I step correct / Woo-hah! Got you all in check! / I got that head nod s*** that make you break your neck / Woo-hah! Got you all in check! / And you know we come through to wreck the discotheque / Woo-hah! Got you all in check! / Throw your hands up in the air, don’t ever disrespect / Woo-hah! Got you all in check!”

Busta Rhymes makes it clear that literally inserting exclamation points into the song title was no gimmick, as his animated energy explodes the track open. Throughout the chorus and verses, Busta stretches, exaggerates, and shouts each word in such a strange way that the song almost sounds extraterrestrial in its zaniness. In the process, he challenges every notion of what music should sound like and how vocals can be delivered.

“Busta Rhymes up in the place, true indeed / Yes, I catch wreck and that’s word on my seed / I’m guaranteed to give you what you need / One blood everybody like Junior Reid / Wake up every morning, yo I must succeed / Nationwide ruckus make the world stampede… / Yo we ‘bout to make moves, set speed / Peace to Baby Phife, Q-Tip, Ali Shaheed / Watch me knock you out like Apollo Creed”

With references to reggae artist Junior Reid, hip-hop friends A Tribe Called Quest, and the Rocky films, Busta Rhymes injects amusing wordplay into his jaw-dropping and exhilarating delivery. Throughout these verses, he has this mesmerizing ability to capture the rebellious energy and out-of-the-box thinking of youth without the angst or cynicism that often exists at that age. This unique identity has allowed him to hold his own and stand out with the hip-hop greats from Notorious B.I.G. to LL Cool J to Missy Elliot to Eminem.

Busta’s vocals would be incomplete without equally strange production. The funky and jazzy synths, idiosyncratic piano keys, pulsing bassline, along with Busta’s own zany adlibs allow the vocals to thrive in this abnormal and fun-loving atmosphere.

Yet Busta’s love for fun doesn’t overshadow his hunger.

“Yo, which motherf***er stole my flow? / Eeny, meeny, miny, moe / Throw them type of n****s right out my window / Blast your a** hit you with a direct blow — BAHH! / Coming through like G.I. Joe / Star Wars, moving ill like Han Solo / Make you bounce around like this was calypso / Always shine ’cause I got the Hi-Pro Glow”

With these lines, Busta Rhymes takes the competitiveness that is a staple in hip-hop and subverts its presentation in a hilarious, offbeat, and somewhat light-hearted way. As a result, he stays grounded in hip-hop roots while bringing some much-needed levity to the genre. Throughout The Coming, whether Busta Rhymes is vicious and aggressive (“Everything Remains Raw”) charming and soulful (“It’s a Party”), or cool and laid-back (“Ill Vibe”), he never sacrifices the talent, creativity, or individuality that makes this album a roller-coaster of fun.

However, experiencing this work of art would be absolutely incomplete without watching its classic music video.

“Woo Hah!! Got You All in Check” by Busta Rhymes (Music Video)

Directed by Hype Williams, the music video showcases Busta Rhymes wearing countless colorful, overfitted, and bizarre outfits and rocking crazy hairstyles while rapping with an absurd level of energy. He literally bounces off the rainbow-soaked walls, his arms flailing with each bar, his eyes bursting out of its sockets, and his mouth stretching beyond belief. The fish-eye lens, surreal camera angles, cheesy CGI, and tacked on scene transitions all elevate this fun atmosphere. Together, Busta Rhymes and Hype Williams create such a captivating and electrifying music video that it becomes absolutely impossible to look away. While Busta naturally tempered his delivery as he entered mid-life, this part of his career remains an underrated gem in hip-hop.

We all have an inner weird. It comes out in the way we sing to ourselves in the shower, dance in our bedroom, and imagine the crazy outfits and hairstyles we are too afraid to try out. Busta Rhymes’s “Woo Hah!! Got You All in Check” inspires us to embrace this inner weird — our qualities and peccadillos that formulate the molecules in our unique body.

I’ve started to embrace my own weirdness. It was always odd to others and to myself that I spent all of my free time listening to and learning about music, or that I found myself wanting to major in both computer science and psychology in college. I had many insecurities and doubts about these interests at the time, but my weirdness led me to some of the best decisions of my life — building a music publication and working at a mental health tech company. Every weird decision I have made, subconscious or conscious, has led to greater confidence, agency, and fulfillment. Along the way, I’ve discovered the beauty of weird. I’ve realized that we don’t always need to follow the norm, filling a life solely of commas, periods, and spaces.

There is room for a couple exclamation points.