Busta Rhymes hit the NYC premiere of “Venom: The Last Dance” on Monday.
He spoke to “Extra’s” Mona Kosar Abdi about his health journey, his friendship with Tom Hardy, and his Marvel aspirations. Busta also weighed in on the Sean “Diddy” Combs case and why he’s reserving any judgment or opinions for now.
Busta opened up about focusing on his fitness and how his children motivated him to make changes.
He shared, “It’s called busting your ass, being consistent in that gym, and being even more consistent with the diet — and I don’t even like calling it diet.
I prefer calling it lifestyle changes… You got to make some serious lifestyle changes, and for me, you know, I think the most important thing is being the cool guy and the hero to my children and being happy as hell and being healthy as hell… It’s a work in progress and it’s still a work in progress, but it got to the point where I started to not look as cool to my kids and I started to hear about it. I didn’t like how that felt. I love the honesty of my children, though, ’cause it actually did a lot to motivate me to want to save myself and be here for my family.”
When Mona mentioned that Tom Hardy was inspired by Busta’s voice for his take on Batman villain Bane, Busta commented, “Not only is it incredible, but it was the initial thing that I saw that kind of planted the seed to us actually connecting with each other. Always been a huge fan of Tom from ‘The Drop’ movie to ‘Legend’ to ‘Bronson,’ like, he’s just one of the most phenomenal actors in the world to me, personally.”
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He added, “Once we got an opportunity to speak to each other, the organic nature of just how the relationship evolved, it’s like he’s like a brother to me now and a friend, and we get on the phone, we have real talk, we be on the phone sometime for hours because, I mean, he knows my personal desire to want to, you know, be a prominent presence in the film and television space.”
Busta said Tom has given him “incredible guidance,” adding, “He’s also been very much one that grown with Busta Rhymes from the early inceptions of my solo career. He’s giving me stories about moments when he might have seen me when he was in his teens when I was performing in different parts of Europe, and just loving what I’ve been doing as an MC.”
The respect is mutual as creatives,” he went on. “So that’s just led to not only us establishing a friendship, but it also led to an incredible opportunity for us to do a commercial for the promotion of the ‘Venom’ movie, and that went incredibly well. And then it led to a lot of dope ideas of things that we’re going to be doing together that’s gonna probably surprise and shock a lot of people. So I super, super give Tom Hardy the seven-star general rank salute.”
Busta said he’d love to be part of the MCU, insisting, “We gonna speak it into existence… Stay tuned becuase Marvel, we will find a way to somehow incorporate Busta Rhymes as the Dragon in the Marvel universe.”
On a more serious note, Busta spoke about Sean “Diddy” Combs, who is currently behind bars awaiting trial after pleading not guilty to charges of racketeering, conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution.
Busta insisted that it’s “not a hip-hop” situation and stressed the importance of reserving opinions until the truth is undisputed.
He commented, “Number one, I think we need to stop doing a hip-hop scene — his situation is not a hip-hop situation. And I also would like for everyone to be mindful of the thirst and the urgency and the need to speak on the situation. I think a lot of times, people don’t realize how insensitive it could be to have opinions on things that you have no understanding of outside of what you’re being told. And we do know that propaganda is a real thing and we also know that the truth is a real thing. I like to wait for the truth before I, you know, really start to dive into trying to understand, because I think understanding is the absence of confusion. Understanding is the reflection of knowledge and wisdom. The truth is undisputed. I think that we kind of, like, confuse ourselves, prematurely pass judgment, and we’re not realizing how much we can directly and indirectly affect everyone involved with our unwarranted opinions.”
Rhymes noted, “With that being said, I’m gonna reserve my opinions and I’m going to wish the best for everyone involved… The one thing that we should take away from what I’m saying is everybody probably need to mind they damn business until the truth is undisputed. At that point, justice needs to be served accordingly for everyone involved.”
He said, “It’s unfortunate, because I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy, and I’m talking about for the victims and I’m talking about for Diddy. So, I’m gonna leave it there, and I’m gonna mind my business, and hopefully everybody can find it in they hearts to keep they opinion to theyself and just know that everytime you voice an opinion, you might be hurting somebody.”
Busta noted, “Now, I don’t dispute what I see. If I see something, ain’t nothing to talk about. But I wasn’t there for none of it, and I also think that for the people who were there, let’s think about them first before you think about your own opinion. Put prayers up for them all.”