Shit, even Busta’s verse is good! These sorts of “sounds like the 90s” songs always make me a little sad, though, because it’s not like hip-hop can live off the occasional Where Are They Now remix, the rare record that does a great job of recapturing that sound. It’s great when they happen but it’s not a sustainable direction.

only tip could convince weezy that autotune isn’t the best idea. it’s good to hear raekwon start to, you know, rap again as opposed to all that whispering he did with ghost on ‘fishscale.’

Who says sadness has to be reasonable? Of course I don’t expect a sustainable direction out of this, but songs like this both remind you that the 90s are, for the most part, an irrecoverable era, and that there is no great sustainable direction we are going in. Year after year my favorite songs are the one thing that sounds like it could’ve been made 12 years ago - that’s sad. As for Busta, he (a) sucked on most of what I heard off the Big Bang, (b) turned New York Shit, which should’ve been another one of these great back to the 90s moments, into a major disappointment, (c) turned ‘Touch It,’ which could’ve been a great club record that would’ve been replayed for many years to come a la his earlier singles, into a dud, (d) made ‘Arab Money,’ which could’ve been a great ignorant record for the ages, into a merely halfway-amusing song, (e) did that awful song with Linkin Park recently, (f) had this really embarrassing transformation when he turned brolic/started rapping about selling crack, and (g) has done a lot of other bad things in the past couple years that I’m forgetting. So it’s really surprising to me when he does anything right anymore. But he is great on this song.

“Songs like this both remind you that the 90s are, for the most part, an irrecoverable era, and that there is no great sustainable direction we are going in. Year after year my favorite songs are the one thing that sounds like it could’ve been made 12 years ago - that’s sad.”

But that says more about you than it does about hip-hop. The world keep spinning. Sadness doesn’t have to be reasonable, but if you want to be legitimately critical you’re supposed to use logic and reason, not emotion.

I’m going to continue to ignore the negative things you say about Busta Rhymes because you continue to overlook the obvious: he’s a legend with a 20 year history. If he’s made some questionable creative decisions in year 19 you can’t allow that to distort what’s true. For instance, “Don’t Touch Me” is an incredible (now sadly underrated) track, but at no point while listening to it was I surprised the person responsible for it was Busta Rhymes.

I agree with Douglas, song of the year so far.

A-rab money is hillarity and Busta’s been quietly killing some of these remixes. I don’t expect a good album out of him (news flash: even his best albums were uneven) but it’s nice to see him rip it.

The only thing this remix could use would be Posdnous or Dres blacking out at the end.