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Hip-hop icon and actor Busta Rhymes (Trevor George Smith Jr.) gives an emotional speech at the unveiling of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on August 1, 2025, at 6201 Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, USA.
This video is available for editorial use in all media and worldwide. To ensure compliance and proper licensing of this video, please contact us at https://www.maximotv.com.
©MaximoTV
#maximotv
🇺🇸
Hip-hop icon and actor Busta Rhymes (Trevor George Smith Jr.) gives an emotional speech at the unveiling of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on August 1, 2025, at 6201 Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, USA.
This video is available for editorial use in all media and worldwide. To ensure compliance and proper licensing of this video, please contact us at https://www.maximotv.com.
©MaximoTV
#maximotv
🇺🇸
Category
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PeopleTranscript
00:00And on behalf of the board and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, it is my
00:08pleasure to declare today Busta Rhymes Day in Hollywood!
00:30So, uh, I've been fighting some tears. Bear with me because, um, I really worked, I worked
00:52so hard. And I never asked for a shortcut. I never asked for a cheat code. And I never,
01:11I never was raised by people or artists or a support system that made it seem okay.
01:21To try to go around honestly earning your right to passage. And I want to thank those people
01:33right now. I'm a thing. I love y'all too. I love a lot of y'all here today. I'm a start
01:47off by thanking my mother. My mom's is my greatest superhero. My father too. But the reason
02:05why I'm leaning so much on my mom's is because they, my mother and my father had two different
02:11approaches and how they wanted to do whatever they could to secure the wind for me. My father
02:20was a licensed electrical contractor. I got two beautiful Jamaican parents. And my father,
02:27he, his, his, his love was tough, but I understood to love it and appreciate it as I got older.
02:36He wasn't a fan of what my interests were because he didn't really see of stability in it. So at
02:44that time I, I wasn't really a fan of the way my father's approach was with me, but what he wanted
02:53to do was make sure that it wasn't no gambling with his son life. So anything that wasn't stability
03:02to him wasn't an option for him to consider. So he used to tell me, fuck that rap shit.
03:11You're going to come to work and you're going to learn this trade and you're going to learn how to
03:17be an electrician like your, your father. And he used to have me in these basements and these
03:23abandoned builders that he would get these contracts for to wire up the building and
03:28run electricity through these buildings. But if you started in the basement and then
03:37during the summertime, when these kids was riding a bike and Papa William is playing two hand
03:44touch football, I was in these basements with these big ass roaches and rats running around.
03:49But I was learning how to put a light in the ceiling and I was learning how to run BX cables
03:56through the wall and through sheet rock and learning all of this at 12 and 13 years old and getting
04:03callous hands at such a young age. But all of that actually inspired me to want to rhyme and
04:10want to be in hip hop so much more because I hated not being allowed to be a child and being
04:18forced to do this thing that I wasn't even interested in doing. Long story short, by the time I was
04:2512, I caught two criminal charges for doing things in the street like hustling and trying to find
04:34money because I wanted to look cool when I went to school. And I didn't need nothing. I was one of
04:39them kids that was very well taken care of. My moms and pops had me in the crib with 19-inch
04:45color TVs. I had ColecoVision, Atari. I was fresh. I didn't need nothing. I just liked
04:54having, and you know, we always want more of what we can't have. So my mother wasn't buying
04:59no sneakers for me over $40. Pumas and Adidas and Clarks and Bally's, they cost way more than
05:06that. So I went and hustled so I could go to school and look cool and be fly for the chicks,
05:12be cool and embraced by the homies. So what I used to do in the process was I was studying
05:20to become everything hip hop. You had a radio station at the time called WHBI. And this was
05:30an underground radio station at the time. And I used to be babysitted by this Panamanian lady
05:34named Aunt Mitzi. My moms used to work nights. And her and my father had recently divorced.
05:40She had a son named Alfonso. He was a graffiti artist. And I used to watch him prepare his graffiti
05:45bag before he used to go and do these beautiful murals on subway cars. And he would leave like
05:511, 2 in the morning. My bedtime curfew was 9 at night, of course, but we wasn't listening
05:56to that. So when the underground station started to kick in, they had Supreme Team come on.
06:03They had Awesome 2 coming on. They had Africa Islam from the Zulu Nation DJing. They used to play
06:09these battles between the Cold Crush brothers, Fawesome Cs, Busy B, Kumo D, the grand architects
06:15of this hip hop thing. I used to make these pause tapes. And then I would lie and go to school
06:22and sell them for $5. And I would tell every kid that was in school that wanted to buy these tapes
06:28I was at the battles. I went there with my older cousin Shawn Doo. And the guard used to have me
06:35chill by the speaker because I was too young to be in there. So I had a little tape recorder and I would
06:40sneak record the battles. But I was there. Lying my ass off. But these tapes helped me build up enough
06:49money selling them for $5 a copy to get the sneakers that I wanted. When I caught those two criminal charges, I moved to Long Island. And I met Charlie Brown from Leaders of the New School. And at this point, Charlie Brown was the star in the school as an MC.
07:09Kid from Queens moved to Long Island. And word started spreading that I was the new kid from Brooklyn. So the buzz was in the school that this Brooklyn kid is in the school. And I wasn't even rhyming yet.
07:26But Brown had this huge audience outside in the schoolyard as he was spitting. And I went over there as the cool Brooklyn kid just wanting to be a part of the moment in hip hop that was happening that was attracting this audience.
07:38And I just started beatboxing for Brown. Brown started dissing me while I was beatboxing for him. And I couldn't understand it. I'm like, bro, I'm providing you this music. What you dissing me for? He just didn't like the fact that this Brooklyn kid was getting this attention. So he just felt like dissing the kid that was getting attention.
07:58I immediately went home that night. And I listened to LL album. And I took a flow pattern from LL album off the Bad album and I just wrote my own rhyme, took his whole flow, put my own words to it.
08:14And the next day I went to school and I did the beatbox again for Brown. And he started dissing me again. I said, I bitch, I'm a fuck you up today. And I busted shit that day.
08:37What you can't beat, you join what you can't beat. That was the birth of the Destiny MCs.
08:46We had a third MC by the name of Mystery that was down with us, but he was in the street. He didn't have a patient. So Brown ended up finding Dinko.
08:54We went over to Dinko crib and heard him spit. We became the Destiny three MCs. Long story short, we went to a talent show and we was in this talent show.
09:07It's about 20 MCs on it. You saving up money. We get these sweatsuits. We looking good.
09:12We spending money in the studio to make this demo tape. We got our two songs ready to perform.
09:17Chuck D, one of the judges, I think Dre from OMTV Raps, T-Money. I mean, they decided to end the show without calling us to perform.
09:30We sitting there and waiting until everybody left and we the last ones in the seat and we watching them packing the equipment.
09:37We were like, oh no, no, fuck that. We're not leaving until y'all hear at least five minutes of what we prepared to do.
09:44They gave us the opportunity to spit. Chuck said, meet us at 510 South Franklin, Spectrum City, which was the headquarters for Public Enemy at the time in Hempstead, Long Island.
09:56We get over there. We get in the office. We meet with Chuck.
10:02Brown's brother, DJ Hague, was very close friends with Eric Vietnam Sadler, the legendary producer in Bomb Squad.
10:11And Chuck had us come up there and when we get up there, we see this billboard of names that he had on a bulletin board and had names like Kings of Pressure, True Mathematics in the Invisible Empire, Funky Frank in the Street Force, Son of Berserk in the Hellraisers, Young Black Teenagers and Leaders of the New School.
10:29Leaders of the New School are like Raiders of the Lost Ark. Raiders, leaders of the Lost Ark, of the New School.
10:38We said we want that name.
10:42Cameron, DJ Scribble and the rest of his group, bunch of white kids from Long Island at the time, they wanted the name too.
10:53So Chuck D and Hank Shockley was on some good cop, bad cop shit.
11:01And like Chuck said, they wanted us to be difficult in terms of our skill set.
11:05So I remember one day before we get to this moment, Hank Shockley wanted us to rhyme, learn how to play these instruments that could play samples and tap dance at the same time.
11:16But he wasn't joking. He was looking at him like he was crazy.
11:22In any event, they sent us home with a mission to make a song.
11:28I won't tell y'all what it is, but that song was heartbreaking to do because it was a very serious, challenging moment and request.
11:37But the point was, let's see how bad y'all really want this.
11:42And that was the goal.
11:44What is the great lengths that y'all are willing to go to to prove that you want this? Earn it.
11:50We ended up with the name Leaders of the New School.
11:53The white kids ended up with the name of a group called the Young Black Teenagers.
11:57I swear to God, on everything I stand for, love and believe in, four white kids from the suburbs of Long Island had to run around and call themselves the Young Black Teenagers.
12:20Chuck and Hank was scientists with this shit.
12:27But again, it was about how bad do you want it?
12:31I want to thank you, Chuck, for giving me my first shot, being one of the first to believe in me.
12:43I say you gave me the name even though you say you presented it because if you didn't present it, it probably wouldn't have been one of the greatest gifts that I've ever received in my life because my name before Busta Rhymes was Chill Old Ski.
12:59No, but see, you got to understand, and I know that this is a limited amount of time thing, but see, I took 35 years to let me get this so y'all are not cutting me off.
13:23But see, Chill Old Ski represented what all of my favorite MC's names were.
13:31They had three part names, LL Cool J, Big Daddy Kane, Prince Marky D, Cool Rock Ski, Grand Master Kaz.
13:46These was my favorite MC's, so I wanted a three part name too.
13:51So Chill Old Ski was mine.
13:53And I felt like that was the first step in becoming one of the next greatest to do it.
14:04But Chuck gave me and presented to me Busta Rhymes, and I didn't like it because I was to be forced to go to Busta Brown shoe stores to buy the ugliest ass shoes for my father.
14:17So anything that was attached to the word Busta, I wasn't with it.
14:20But, Chuck said, give it a try, and if you don't like it, you go back to Chill Old Ski.
14:26I ran around, the truck gave us these opportunities to be on the road with Public Enemy opening up for him.
14:32About a year or two later, I couldn't see myself being called anything else.
14:38At the end of the day, Kane used to let me come to his crib and watch what it was like to be in a million dollar home in Jamaica Estates in Queens.
14:52Sit around, watch beautiful young Queens, prepare his wardrobe before he got dressed to go to the shows.
15:07Go to the studio with him, ask questions, make records with him.
15:13Watch motherfuckers get they ass beat when they tried to violate the crew.
15:17Watch him out, rap everybody.
15:22I saw all of this, and he let me see it, and he welcomed me.
15:26He wasn't like, you're too young to hang out. Go home, shorty.
15:30He didn't treat me like that, you know what I'm saying?
15:33I remember driving to the Black Expo one time.
15:36At Jacob Javits Center, and I was by myself.
15:41This was before I had security budget.
15:43And I'm on my way to the Black Expo, and I get a call from Q-Tip.
15:47And he go, yo, I'm in the studio with Kane.
15:50Kane wants you to get on this record called Come On Down.
15:54I said, fuck the Black Expo.
15:56I bust a U-turn, I went to the stool.
15:59I get to the studio, and this time I'm on fire as the Dungeon Dragon.
16:04Rawr, rawr like a Dungeon Dragon scenario and all that shit is popping.
16:07So I get to the studio, and I'm bugging because I'm in the same room with one of my favorite MCs.
16:15And at this point I was at a stage in my head where I felt like I wanted to give the Dungeon Dragon persona a little break.
16:31And I wanted people to pay attention to my lyrics more, instead of that rawr, rawr all the time, right?
16:38So I go in the booth, and I spit my rhyme, and I come out, and I don't do the rawr, rawr.
16:43So Kane come over to me on the low, and he go, yo, where the rawr, rawr at?
16:48I said, yo, Kane, you ain't like the verse? He was like, nah, that's dope, but I need the rawr, rawr.
17:02So if you listen to that song, if you listen to the verse, when y'all find time after today, y'all will notice after the whole 16 bars, at the end of the song, I go rawr, rawr.
17:22Direct from the lungs of the dragon.
17:28I left the studio a little frustrated, because I was like, my rhyme wasn't good enough without the rawr, rawr that came.
17:40But the moment was so incredible, because when it came out, and I would perform the song, motherfuckers would go crazy to hear me do that verse.
17:50And at the time, I was the go-to guy, because my verses, and at that time, when your verse was last on a collab, you was the finisher.
18:01Rest in peace to Mr. C.
18:04LL Cool J, I gotta thank you for being my first MC that I wanted to look like, I wanted to rhyme like.
18:17Like, when I saw the bad video, and you was, like, when I saw that, I said, I'm performing like that.
18:28I'm rhyming like that.
18:29So then you got all of that, from, all of that that you see me doing, is from that video.
18:35And then I combined that with dance hall culture from Jamaica, and that became Busta Rhymes.
18:44LL also gave me my first flow pad in the bus, my first battle rap situation and competition, which was Charlie Brown on his ass.
18:54The jewelry, the swag, all of these things I got from LL, Kane, Slick Rick, Rakim.
19:12These is my teachers.
19:15These is my big bros.
19:17These is my fathers.
19:19Chuck D always said to us as leaders that CLAMP is when you got a lock on your career.
19:27And CLAMP is the acronym for concept, lyrics, attitude, music, and performance.
19:32You got all of that.
19:34You got the game on lock, and you got a CLAMP on your career and on your future.
19:38I'm going to shift things real quick, because I got to thank the incredible women, because my whole success story is primarily based on the nurturing of the children, of the women that just nurtured me, like, beyond the music.
19:59I want to pick up Sylvia Rhone.
20:08I've been on seven record labels.
20:13Everywhere Sylvia Rhone went, she made sure I had a home.
20:21Sylvia Rhone came into my life in 1995.
20:25It was a CEO over there when Dante Ross, big up to Dante Ross, because Dante Ross signed Leaders of the New School.
20:32In 1989, there was a CEO over there by the name of Bob Krasnoff.
20:40I think I probably met him once or twice.
20:43Never seen him again.
20:45But big up to him, too.
20:48But I never met this kind of experience from a CEO the way that I did in my life until I met Sylvia Rhone.
20:59Sylvia Rhone was not just the CEO and not just the greatest black woman CEO of all time since the inception of hip-hop music and entertainment period.
21:16But she was a mother to my life and music.
21:20She was a mother to my mental and emotional roller coasters that I was going through at the time.
21:29I had one child when I met Sylvia Rhone.
21:32I got six now.
21:34I'm going to tell you something.
21:39There was a time when I was going through a major child support situation with one of the mothers.
21:45And I was going into the Extinction Level Event album.
21:49And I'm the poster boy of Elektra.
21:51I'm putting all the numbers on the scoring board.
21:54I'm platinum and everything.
21:55Sylvia was making sure that my video budgets were shitting on everybody's in existence.
22:02She made sure my album budgets were shitting on everybody's in existence.
22:06But one of the mothers was trying to really go hard with the child support modification.
22:11Sylvia Rhone and my attorney and Mona Scott Young, Chris Lighty, created this amazing plan to make sure that they did things to make sure that
22:33that things was done in the best interest of the baby daddy at the time.
22:44Long story short, Sylvia Rhone protected her artists.
22:50She made sure that our wins were secured all the way to a default.
22:56Because Sylvia got in trouble sometimes sacrificing so much for us.
23:01Because Mona Scott Young, same thing.
23:05When I was going through these dramas, she was on the phone helping me navigate every day.
23:12I want to big up Chris Lighty.
23:14Rest in please to Chris Lighty.
23:19I want to big up hip-hop overall.
23:24I want to big up my immediate team, my immediate circle.
23:28Big up to my brother Blitz.
23:30Couldn't be here celebrating his wedding anniversary.
23:34I want to big up Corey Litwin.
23:37I want to big up Range Media.
23:39I want to big up Mona Scott Young again.
23:41Mona Me Entertainment.
23:44I want to big up Joey Harris.
23:45I want to big up Spliff Star and DJ Scratch-A-Tor.
23:59I want to big up my beautiful children.
24:01Taziah, Casey, Takai, Trillian, Sicario, Mariah.
24:10I love y'all so much.
24:13The number nine is a beautiful number.
24:17It represents completion.
24:202025.
24:21Two plus zero plus two plus five equals nine.
24:28Three times three equals nine.
24:31Today I got three incredible moments to celebrate.
24:34This beautiful Hollywood star.
24:36The releasing of the Naked Gun movie.
24:42And the release of the Bad Guys 2 movie that I did the theme song for.
24:49And all three of these is happening today.
24:52And today is August 1st.
24:56The eighth month, first day.
24:58That equals nine too.
25:00It takes nine months to be born and brought into existence.
25:04It takes nine planets to complete the solar system.
25:08And it takes a man and a woman and a child to complete a beautiful family.
25:13120 degrees man, 120 degrees woman, 120 degrees child is completion.
25:25Because that's 360 degrees.
25:28And three plus six plus zero equals nine.
25:34So I'm saying all this to say that I feel born again today.
25:40I feel complete today.
25:42Today, as we completed this chapter, we starting to give birth to a new one.
25:50Because I'm no longer Daniel-san in this shit.
25:54I'm Mr. Miyagi now.
26:01Thank y'all so much for your time.
26:04Thank y'all for your love.
26:07And just know the blessings don't stop.
26:09So we won't stop.
26:12So on behalf of the City of Los Angeles and Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez, I would like
26:20to present you with this certification.
26:22We won't forget today.
26:24I'll be really sad.
26:25I'll come back to that one.
26:30And then this way.
26:33We won't be careful.
26:36I got my head for some for you.
26:39That's it.
26:41You gonna say it?
26:42Yeah.
26:43Nice to meet you.
26:43Yeah.
26:44And then this way.
26:44Kinda can't trust you.
26:44Can't trust you guys all along your 2021
26:49Like, don't do anything?
26:50Yeah.
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