Issue date: June 18, 2000

In this article:
Rhymes in Shaft

By Craigh Barboza

usta Rhymes isn't exactly known for his self-restraint. A few years ago, while recording his debut album, he left the studio to check on his new SUV. He'd recently purchased the Toyota Land Cruiser, a giant vehicle that gives the impression of driving on an elevated track, for $40,000. Rhymes took the elevator down and came out on Broadway, in lower Manhattan, at 11:30 p.m. His ride was gone. Furious, he marched back inside and closed the door in the recording booth. "There was nothing I could do at that point, so I just vented that angry energy into three songs," he says. Woo-Hah!! Got You All in Check, one of the tracks he completed by morning, went on to become a street anthem and crossover hit, his first ever.

Understand, that "wreck-the-club" adrenaline has been the secret to Rhymes' success. On the microphone, the wild man of hip-hop is manic and unpredictable -- less is never more. He raps in a loud, gruff, uncontrollable voice, appears in videos that resemble cartoons, and attends award shows in garish getups.

Now 28, Rhymes is carving a distinctive movie career in the shadow of fellow rappers-turned-actors Will Smith and Ice Cube. The transition meant having to learn the value of understatement, not an easy task for the lyricist behind hits like Gimme Some Mo'. "I've definitely had to adjust," says Rhymes, who co-stars in the new version of Shaft, out this weekend. "Part of it's learning to pace your emotions. You gotta pull back sometimes."

It's not every day an acclaimed director writes a part for an unseasoned actor in a big summer movie, but John Singleton couldn't think of anyone better to bring a "contemporary New York" flavor and "ironic humor" to his update of the '70s film series, with Samuel L. Jackson as the title character. In his first major role, Rhymes is a streetwise cabdriver from Brooklyn, someone you can depend on to "hold you down" when it's time to throw down, even if it means losing his girlfriend and getting his crib shot to bits. "Busta has a great sense of humor," Singleton says. "On the set, he was one of the only people that could rib Sam."

When Rhymes first saw Shaft on Betamax in the early '80s, he instantly connected with its leather-clad hero. This super-bad brother, who toyed with white authority, roughed up 'hoods and rescued the sister, was like nothing he'd ever seen. "The idea of a black film was crazy to me," says Rhymes, who was then 10. "If we went to the movies it was to see Arnold Schwarzenegger, Star Wars -- all these big white films. All those were fly, too. It was just to see a black superhero. That made me feel like the man."

Before his leap to stardom, Rhymes, born Trevor Smith, was a rambunctious middle-class kid from Long Island who wrote "rap poetry" and dropped out of high school to pursue a music career. "I really thought he'd be a dancer," says his mother, Geraldine Green. "At family cookouts he would win all the dance contests. He was always a showman." Instead, at 17, Rhymes landed a six-figure record deal.

During the next decade, he started his own label, Flipmode, and a clothing business, Bushi, whose products he models in Shaft. "I never got past 10th grade, and my mom had to deal with friends and family whose kids were doing their thing with college," he explains. "A lot of these kids come home owing mad loans. They got degrees but they're not really marketable skills. So then they come to me looking for an internship."

He's a hard guy to miss. Rhymes is 6-foot-4 with neatly plaited dreadlocks, worn long or in attention-grabbing buns. On a wet, windy evening in mid-April, he's sitting in a cramped recording booth, listening to his new CD, Anarchy, out Tuesday. He's dipped from head to heel in Bushi; a cardinal-red sleeveless top shows off his tattooed musculature. Rhymes' ears, neck, fingers and wrists are lit up with diamonds. He sure doesn't look like the Struggling Actor. But despite three platinum albums in five years, Rhymes is still regarded as a newcomer in Hollywood, someone who must prove himself all over again. And he's determined to do so by playing a wide variety of roles, not just big-screen variations of his on-mike persona. Last year, he provided the voice of Reptar in The Rugrats Movie. His next project is Finding Forrester, a drama with Sean Connery.

One thing acting taught him to do is flip the script. "Movies made me realize I gotta show different sides," says Rhymes, who is working on an HBO project about hip-hop, which he will write and direct as part of an upcoming series produced by Madonna. He's not about to give up the music thing just yet.

"I'm a studio dude," Rhymes says. "I like to be in here, blazing trees with the music on 10, writing rhymes. That's just the love that I have. I don't think anything else is giving me that feeling right now."

As Shaft would say, dig it.

Photo Credit: TODD PLITT for USA WEEKEND