The Impressive Guinness World Record Once Held By Busta Rhymes
Busta Rhymes (above), born Trevor Smith according to AllMusic, has had a lengthy and impressive career. Writer John Bush describes the New York-born rapper's music as "halting, ragga-inspired" with "lyrics defined by incredible complexity, inventiveness, and humor." He also has Jamaican heritage, which AllMusic notes has contributed to his musical style and skill. Specifically, popular types to come out of the Caribbean island nation in the past century include reggae and its younger cousin, ragga, which, according to Discogs, is a sort of fusion between reggae and hip hop. And Busta Rhymes sits squarely at the intersection of those two forms.
Rhymes has also leaned into another art form that is a part of the rap/hip-hop genre. Specifically, Rhymes can rattle off an impressive number of words in a brief period of time, as evidenced in the song "Look at Me Now." So skilled is Rhymes at this art form that, for a time anyway, as The Urban Daily reports, he held the Guinness World Record for the most syllables produced in one second.
The Importance Of Flow
Producing, performing, and recording rap/hip-hop music, or music in related genres such as ragga, requires the melding of multiple skills. There's producing the beat (usually done electronically), sampling, scratching on the turntables, hyping the crowd, and so on. And one important aspect of the hip-hop product is what is known in the industry as flow. One key aspect of the rap/hip hop performance, according to Smart Rapper, is flow. Put simply, flow is the delivery of the lyrics in time with the beat, such as a vocalist in any other genre would do. "Flowing is following the beat with your voice at the perfect pace. Just the right rhythm," writes Rob Revel.
The thing with flow is that some rappers, such as Eminem, Twista, and of course, Busta Rhymes, have been known to push it to the limit when it comes to squeezing in as many syllables as possible into a short amount of time. When it's done correctly, such as in the Eminem song "Rap God," it can push the boundaries of what can be accomplished with the human voice. And Busta Rhymes is one of the fastest there is.
Busta's 2000 Guinness World Record
Busta Rhymes briefly held the Guinness World Record for producing the most syllables in one second, with The Urban Daily and Capital Xtra both making that claim. However, neither site comes out and says what song it was that earned him the title, nor do either of the sites specify how many words and/or how many syllables Busta was able to spit. The Urban Daily does mention that, prior to Busta taking the title, it had been held by not a rapper but by basically a regular guy: John Moschitta, a voiceover actor who could articulate multiple words in a short amount of time, albeit by just speaking them regularly and not rapping or keeping time. Both sites also mention that a "little-known rapper" took the title from Busta sometime later, without mentioning their name.
It remains unclear who holds that title now, but a candidate may be the aforementioned Eminem. According to the Harrison Township Public Library, the Detroit rapper holds the record for most words in a song for "Rap God," which includes 1,560 words in six minutes, for an average of 4.28 words per second. The Guinness website gives Eminem an extremely specific record adjacent to Busta's: He holds the world record for Fastest Rap In A #1 Single for the third verse of "Godzilla," which squeezes 225 words into one 30-second segment, or 7.5 words per second.