It's been floating around the Internets for about two years now, but Busta Rhymes' The Big Bang was just released in stores yesterday. I ran a review of it on my own site a couple of weeks ago, but it was written by some other dude. So I'm sure you're all thinking, I wonder what Bol thinks about the new Busta Rhymes album.

Funny you should ask.

In another post about the album here, a while ago, I had my concerns about the album's commercial prospects. Busta Rhymes is a well-liked guy in the industry, and he shifted quite a few units back in the 1990s, but then he doesn't really have a reputation as a guy who makes great albums. If I was going to sink $6 gozillion into someone's album, it wouldn't be Busta Rhymes.

The thing is, once you sink that much money into an album, it's bound to come out at least kinda good. How else to explain The Documentary or, let's face it, King? Lo and behold, that turns out to be the case here as well. I'm convinced at this point that Dr. Dre could make a great album with Yung Joc.

First of all, this album has incredible guest appearances. Both Stevie Wonder and Rick James, who had to be brought back from the grave, are singing hooks on this shit. In a row, actually. Neither one of them sound particularly good, but whatever. The broad from Floetry may not have a full set of teeth or a figure, but that bitch can sing.

Q-Tip may be working for food at this point, but he's got talent, god damnit. Other rappers featured on this include Swizz Beatz (sort of), Missy Elliott, Raekwon and Nas. Only two tracks on this, way towards the end of the album, don't feature some sort of guest artist. Fortunately though, none of those god-awful "Touch It" remixes are included.

[Is the Latoya Jackson featured on "I'll Do It All" the same one from, um, Playboy, or are my MP3s tagged wrong? Not to suggest that I copped my copy of this from illegal, mafia-run Internets.]

I don't have the album booklet handy (um, I left it out in the car), but I would assume that the production lineup is similarly star-studded. I know for a fact that Dr. Dre, Swizz Beatz, DJ Scratch, Timbaland, and Will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas all dropped beats on this. J Dilla's corpse may have also been involved, come to think of it.

Of course the end result here ends up being way less than the sum of its parts. As a rapper, Busta Rhymes is best-suited for making wacky videos and showing up on the remix to every third shitty rap record ever released. No amount of big-budget producers and guest artists can change that, but it's still fun to watch them try.

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