Busta Rhymes: Extinction Level Event

According to the Five Percent Nation, a Nation Of Islam splinter group popular with rappers—perhaps because one of the central tenets of its faith is that a person's moral worth is determined by his or her ability to kick funky rhymes—the coming millennium will bring with it a global apocalypse. Since his days with Leaders Of The New School, Busta Rhymes has been a fervent and vocal Five Percenter, so it's appropriate that on his new album, he kicks his lyrics with an almost superhuman urgency. "Gotta get yours before the year 2 G!," Rhymes bellows somewhere early in the album, and that line is a fair summation of his philosophy. Sure, an earth-shattering crisis is imminent, and sure, 95 percent of the world's population is about to meet a hideous, ungodly demise, but that's no reason to forget the truly important things in this world: the legendary greatness of Busta Rhymes and the Flipmode Squad. Luckily, Rhymes' underwhelming Flipmode compatriots have a relatively low profile on Extinction Level Event, the better to place the focus on his scratchy, cartoonishly hyper-kinetic flow. While the Flipmode Squad is only featured on one song here, he's otherwise assembled an impressive group of guest performers: An obscenely libidinous Janet Jackson trades single-entendres with Rhymes on "What's It Gonna Be!," Ozzy Osbourne sings the chorus on "This Means War," an engagingly shameless "Iron Man" remake, and the equally frenetic Mystikal joins forces with Rhymes to ask the eternal musical question, "Iz They Wildin Wit Us & Gettin Rowdy Wit Us" Running over 70 minutes, Extinction Level Event has its share of filler, but it's an irreverent, frequently entertaining album from a performer who realizes better than most the importance of living in the moment.