About Busta Rhymes
Trevor George Smith Jr. , known professionally as Busta Rhymes, is an American rapper, record producer, and actor. Chuck D of Public Enemy gave him the moniker Busta Rhymes, after NFL and CFL wide receiver George "Buster" Rhymes. He has received 12 Grammy Award nominations for his work, making him one of the most-nominated artists without winning.
Busta Rhymes was an original member of Leaders of the New School, a group that attracted national attention when they opened on tour for Public Enemy. He gained exposure for their guest appearance on A Tribe Called Quest's track "Scenario". Shortly thereafter, Leaders of the New School broke up, leading Rhymes to become a sought after solo artist, appearing on numerous tracks for other artists before his solo debut album, The Coming . The album reached the top ten on the Billboard 200 album chart, was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America , and earned him a Grammy nomination.
He has released eleven total solo albums, with the most recent being 2023's Blockbusta. Rhymes' list of hit singles include "Woo-Hah!! Got You All in Check", "It's a Party", "Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See", "Dangerous", "Turn It Up" /"Fire It Up", "Gimme Some More", "What's It Gonna Be?", "Pass the Courvoisier, Part II", "I Know What You Want" and "Touch It".
Among his other ventures, he founded the record label Conglomerate and the production crew The Conglomerate . About.com included him on its list of the 50 Greatest MCs of Our Time , and Steve Huey of AllMusic called him one of the best and most prolific rappers of the 1990s. In 2012, The Source placed him on its list of the Top 50 Lyricists of All Time. MTV has called him "one of hip-hop's greatest visual artists".
Busta Rhymes was born Trevor George Smith Jr. in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn on May 20, 1972, to Geraldine Green and Trevor Smith Sr., both from Jamaica. At age 12, Smith's family moved to Uniondale, New York. For a short while, Smith attended George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School in Brooklyn with future rappers Christopher "The Notorious B.I.G." Wallace and Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, and attended Samuel J. Tilden High School with Edward "Special Ed" Archer and Roderick "Chip Fu" Roachford of Fu-Schnickens. Smith eventually graduated from Long Island's Uniondale High School in 1991.
Busta also spent time in Britain during the early 1980s where he resided with his maternal aunt. She lived in Morecambe, and he spent two summers there with his mother and younger brother. He went to Skerton Community High School while he was staying in the area. He told GQ in a 2020 interview, "One summer when we went down there I was 12, my brother was eight, so my aunt made sure that we actually went to school in England. Regular school and then we went to karate school too. We also were on some breakdancing that was so crazy, we ended up actually getting work to breakdance in clubs as minors. And our cousins used to run us around and they used to advertise us as TJ and Paul."
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