999,903: Busta Rhymes — So Hardcore

When your run-of-the-mill '90s rapper brags about being "so hardcore", it's almost redundant. You take it as given that the artist in question takes pride in their hardcore quotient, because it is the '90s, and rap is a scary music full of crimes and bad words.

But what about when Busta Rhymes does it? As the oft-professed court jester of hip-hop—the muppet who sits on Jabba the Hutt's tail of hip-hop, if you will—one might expect that Busta's take on the hardcore concept would exhibit telltale signs of his trademark eccentricity. The "real life" Busta was, on the one hand, caught with a machete in his trunk, which seems pretty hardcore, but on the other hand he also named himself after a luckless NFL kick returner, which...less so.

Since real life once again leaves something to be desired, let's turn to his MC persona. Even when he takes a break from repping the apocalypse for a brag-and-dis track—its almost atonal piano riff and a tambourine shake sound pretty sinister (hardcore-ish!)—Busta keeps you off balance. That's "you", the unnamed rapper from "So Hardcore" whose rhyming skills are lesser than Busta's.

First, Busta hijacks "your whole shopping malls." Then, using a remote control, he forces you to "crash cars and shit". Now onto the subject of your wack rhymes; just how bad are they? They "make people start cursin'/Flows contradict worser than the King James version." Ouch! Suffice to say, your so-called "skills" are pathetic.

That's all very clever, and some of it funny, but what does it really say about Busta and his claim to be hardcore? I'll tell you what's hardcore: having the stones to say you're "so hardcore like Quickdraw McGraw", a thick cartoon horse who is probably not even among the most harcore Hanna-Barbera characters. And in case you missed it, Busta compares himself to Quickdraw seven times. There's your hardcore.

So Hardcore - Busta Rhymes