Busta Rhymes Beats The Rap
The hip-hop legend wins his court battle and Rocks the Royal Albert Hall to its Corps.....
It was conveniently dramatic enough to be a pr stunt - but we're assured it wasn't. Big US headliner gets held by immigration officials hours before gig, so second A-lister (Ludacris) is flown in just in case, then first headliner wins a last minute court order leaving capacity crowd with two rappers for the price of one. Mmnnnn.
The Busta Rhymes sideshow unfortunately stole the limelight from the noble idea behind the Orange Rock Corps show, where people got tickets in return for 4 hours voluntary work, inspiring over 5000 people to do so.
Lethal Bizzle, The Guillemots, John Legend, The Automatic and Feeder were all good - but it wasn't until the penultimate performer Ludacris came out that the crowd really got going. Luda ran through all his biggest hits from 'Fantasy' to 'Move B***h' to 'Stand Up' and was visibly surprised at the volume at which his lyrics were sung back to him.
And then came 36-year-old Trevor Smith aka Busta Rhymes, accompanied by long time sidekick Spliff Star. It's a shame that the audience was made up entirely of the public rather than some of today's other rappers - or musicians from any genre for that matter - as they would have got a lesson in the art of showmanship.
Bussa Bus took the crowd on a journey through his huge back catalogue - from solo efforts like 'Make It Clap' to his features on Pussycat Dolls and Lumidee tracks - fast, slow, loud, quiet, Wooh Hah!, Uh Oh!, it had it all.
To see footage of the night check out the MTV News blog: www.mtvblogs.co.uk/news