Busta Rhymes' innovative blend of bravado and humor is like nothing the industry has seen before. I guess you could say that Rhymes has changed the face of rap forever. And what a face he has, one that wears an elastic grin one second and a defiant scowl – that could surely knock grandma off her rocker – the next.

Suffice it to say, Busta (né Trevor Smith) has knocked a lot of folks off their rockers during his burgeoning career. From his early work with The Leaders of the New School, in 1990, to the recently released Extinction Level Event (The Final World Front), his third solo effort to date, Rhymes has continually shown the world that he is one excitable boy. His music is quirky, sometimes frightening and often hysterical. His rhyming talents and his phrasing are par none.

The 26-year-old native of Brooklyn – whose ballistic energy and rubbery expressions could easily classify him as the Jim Carrey of rap – continues to move forward at warp speed. "I try to represent myself in a way that's not going to let people down," Rhymes says. "But at the same time, I'm never going to do the same old shit."

The word shit, by the way, appears to be omnipresent in Busta's vocabulary (motherfuckah also seems to come in handy). This unabated and unabashed level of communication factors strongly into the man's appeal. "Every mood is an extreme for me," he explains. "I can't hide my feelings."

On the new CD, Rhymes makes it clear that, in his estimation, the new millennium holds one thing in store for us: Armageddon. But don't be alarmed, he manages to make the premonition fun, and he does so with some help from two of the music biz's esteemed heavyweights: Ozzy Osbourne and Janet Jackson, who have guest spots on the CD.

Says Busta of Ozzy: "The power he puts behind [his work]…it's the same way I approach my shit, whether I'm recording or performing. To be able to do this on Extinction Level Event blew me away." Kind words also follow for Jackson: "It was a pleasure to work with her from beginning to end. She couldn't have been more gracious."

Busta, who left school in the 11th grade, has managed to do far better in life than your standard-fare high school dropout. His first album, The Coming went platinum; the follow-up, When Disaster Strikes, has sold a cool 1.5 million copies.

As mentioned, however, the jig may soon be up since, according to Busta, the end is near. Among the causes of the pending apocalypse, he cites the Year-2000 computer bug that has the planet quaking in its shoes. Rhymes predicts that the bug will shut down electronic devices of every ilk. "It'll just destroy my career and everyone else's."

A couple of points: For starters, Busta is assuming that our machines are currently functioning well. (Has he been on the Internet lately?) Furthermore, I can't help feeling that the whole Y2K movement has been tremendously over-hyped by our hungry-for-excitement culture.

I'm not saying the end is or isn't at hand. I just don't list the Y2K problem as the most potent factor in the possibility of a doomsday event. If you want to get nervous, why not look to the Middle East and a little country called Iraq. Now, you have something to worry about. As The Artist says, Two thousand zero, zero, party over, oops outta time...

December 1998