It Ain't Safe No More
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''It Ain't Safe No More...'' is the sixth
studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...
by American rapper
Busta Rhymes Trevor George Smith Jr. (born May 20, 1972), known professionally as Busta Rhymes, is an American rapper, singer and actor. Chuck D of Public Enemy gave him the moniker Busta Rhymes, after National Football League, NFL and Canadian Football Lea ...
, released on November 26, 2002, by Flipmode Records and
J Records J Records was an American record label owned and operated by Bertelsmann Music Group until it was transferred to Sony Music Entertainment when they acquired all of BMG's record labels in late 2008 at the end of their merger. It was distribut ...
. It was his final album for J. The album was produced by
Swizz Beatz Kasseem Daoud Dean (born September 13, 1978), known professionally as Swizz Beatz, is an American rapper and record producer. Born and raised in the Bronx borough of New York City, Dean embarked on his musical career as a DJ in 1994. At the age ...
,
J Dilla James Dewitt Yancey (February 7, 1974 – February 10, 2006), better known by the stage names J Dilla and Jay Dee, was an American record producer, composer and rapper. He emerged from the mid-1990s underground hip hop scene in Detroit, Michiga ...
,
DJ Scratch George Spivey (born June 21, 1968), known professionally as DJ Scratch, is an American hip hop music, hip hop DJ and producer from Brooklyn, New York. DJ Scratch is the 1988 New Music Seminar Battle For World Supremacy DJ champion, the 2010 M ...
,
the Neptunes The Neptunes were an American record production duo composed of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, formed in Virginia Beach, Virginia, in 1992. Williams often provided backing vocals and music video appearances on the duo's productions, while H ...
, and
Rick Rock Ricardo Thomas, also known as Rick Rock, is an American record producer originally from Montgomery, Alabama and based in Fairfield, California. He is a founding member of the former rap group Cosmic Slop Shop and the Federation with fellow ra ...
, among others. It features guest appearances by
Mariah Carey Mariah Carey ( ; born March 27, 1969) is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Songbird Supreme" by ''Guinness World Records'', Carey is known for her five-octave voc ...
,
Sean Paul Sean Paul Ryan Francis Henriques (born 9 January 1973) is a Jamaican dancehall musician. Paul's first album, ''Stage One'', was released in 2000. He gained international fame with his second album, ''Dutty Rock'', in 2002. Its single "Get Busy ...
, Carl Thomas, and
Spliff Star William A. Lewis (born April 18, 1971), professionally known as Spliff Star, is an American rapper and record producer from Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York. He's best known for his work with Busta Rhymes. Both ''Vibe'' and ''Complex'' listed Spliff ...
. ''It Ain't Safe No More...'' was supported by two singles: "
Make It Clap "Make It Clap" is the first single released from Busta Rhymes's sixth studio album, '' It Ain't Safe No More...'', released on the following month, which is November 26, 2002. The remix version was released on January 13, 2003 as the official si ...
" and "
I Know What You Want "I Know What You Want" is a song by American rapper Busta Rhymes and singer Mariah Carey, featuring verses from Rhymes' group Flipmode Squad: Spliff Star, Baby Sham, Rah Digga, and Rampage. Produced by Rick Rock, it was released on February 2 ...
". The album received positive reviews from most
music critic '' The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of m ...
s and received slow commercial success. The album debuted and peaked at number 43 on the US ''Billboard'' 200, selling 62,000 copies in its first week, but despite that, was eventually certified
gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...
by the
RIAA The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...
on January 6, 2003.


Singles

The original version of "
Make It Clap "Make It Clap" is the first single released from Busta Rhymes's sixth studio album, '' It Ain't Safe No More...'', released on the following month, which is November 26, 2002. The remix version was released on January 13, 2003 as the official si ...
" (which features Spliff Star) was released to urban contemporary radio on October 14, 2002. The remix version (which features another guest, Sean Paul) was later sent to radio as the album's official lead single on January 13, 2003. "
I Know What You Want "I Know What You Want" is a song by American rapper Busta Rhymes and singer Mariah Carey, featuring verses from Rhymes' group Flipmode Squad: Spliff Star, Baby Sham, Rah Digga, and Rampage. Produced by Rick Rock, it was released on February 2 ...
" (which features Mariah Carey and Flipmode Squad) was released as the album's second single on February 24 of that same year. It peaked at number 3 in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Rhymes' previous single, "Make It Clap," had failed to reach the top forty on the U.S. ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart. "I Know What You Want" stayed in the top forty for twenty-one weeks, and was ranked 17 on the Hot 100 2003 year-end chart. For Carey, it was a return to form after a string of unsuccessful singles, and it became one of her biggest hits in years.
Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American reco ...
later included it on her first
remix album A remix album is an album consisting of remixes or rerecorded versions of an artist's earlier released material. The first act who employed the format was American singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson ('' Aerial Pandemonium Ballet'', 1971). As of 200 ...
'' The Remixes'' (2003) and the British and Japanese reissues of Carey's ninth studio album ''
Charmbracelet ''Charmbracelet'' is the ninth studio album by American singer Mariah Carey, released in North America on December 3, 2002, through MonarC Entertainment and Island Def Jam. The album was Carey's first release since her breakdown following the ...
'' (2002). The plot line for the video for "I Know What You Want" was continued in the video for the 2021 single " Where I Belong", in which Rhymes collaborated again with Carey.


Critical reception

''It Ain't Safe No More...'' received positive reviews from most
music critic '' The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of m ...
s. At
Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, which assigns a
normalized Normalization or normalisation refers to a process that makes something more normal or regular. Science * Normalization process theory, a sociological theory of the implementation of new technologies or innovations * Normalization model, used in ...
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an
average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...
score of 65, based on eight reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".
AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...
John Bush found that the album "continues in the vein of loose-cannon classics like 1997's '' When Disaster Strikes'' and 2001's ''
Genesis Genesis may refer to: Religion * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of humankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Bo ...
''. And when he's on, he's better than ever, too ..Except for a few overblown performances and quasi-epic productions, ''It Ain't Safe No More'' finds Busta Rhymes with the same sure grip on his distinctive personality." Joseph Patel from ''
Blender A blender (sometimes called a mixer (from Latin ''mixus, the PPP of miscere eng. to Mix)'' or liquidiser in British English) is a kitchen and laboratory appliance used to mix, crush, purée or emulsify food and other substances. A stationary ...
'' felt that Rhymes's "animated antics border on sensory overload, but this is some of Busta’s best work, making him perhaps the greatest show in Rap." Caroline Sullivan, writing for ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'', felt that "as ever, Rhymes's attentions are divided between dire apocaplyptic predictions and an irrepressible need to play the fool, and he has included the usual complement of tongue-in-cheek japery ..So it's Bustaness as usual, and the spectacle of him in full rasping flow is still something to behold." Less impressed, Malcolm Venable from ''
Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American online magazine, digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, ...
'' called ''It Ain't Safe No More...'' "a tragically mediocre album full of lackluster arrangements and inexplicably short songs. His superb cadence and lyrics are overpowered by forgettable melodies and beats that don’t matter. Even guests Mariah Carey and the Neptunes provoke shoulder shrugs. Four of 18 tracks are almost good, but the rest is hopelessly ill suited for the radio, dance hall, or any other booty-shaking venue."


Commercial performance

''It Ain't Safe No More...'' debuted and peaked at number 43 on the US ''Billboard'' 200, selling 62,000 copies in its first week. It marked Rhymes's lowest opening sales up to then and was a considerable decline from his previous effort ''
Genesis Genesis may refer to: Religion * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of humankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Bo ...
'' (2001), which had moved three times that many units and bowed in seventh in its first week out. On January 6, 2003, ''It Ain't Safe No More...'' was certified Gold by the
Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...
(RIAA). By March 2014, the album had sold 678,000 copies in the United States.


Track listing


Charts


Weekly charts


Year-end charts


Certifications


References


External links

* {{Authority control Busta Rhymes albums 2002 albums Albums produced by DJ Scratch Albums produced by J Dilla Albums produced by the Neptunes Albums produced by Rick Rock Albums produced by Swizz Beatz Albums produced by True Master Albums produced by Mario Winans J Records albums Albums produced by Mr. Porter Albums produced by Megahertz (record producer)