Who’s the cat who won’t cop out when there’s danger all about?
Shaft?
Nah. We’re talking ’bout Busta Rhymes. Can you dig it?
Rhymes, the rap star and impresario who plays a streetwise buddy to Samuel L. Jackson’s lead in “Shaft,” has fearlessly tackled several projects at the same time.
He’s about as busy as a young recording star can get, putting out a new disc, “Anarchy,” which is due out in a couple of weeks.
And he continues to hone his rap entrepreneurship, framing the career of beautiful protege Rah Diggah.
The man even has a fashion line.
So with all that he’s got going on, why take on a major film like “Shaft,” in which Rhymes plays Rasaan, Shaft’s tough-talking right-hand man? Was it simply a labor of love?
You damn right.
The original film “Shaft,” starring Richard Roundtree, was a big deal to an impressionable young Rhymes. The Shaft character, he says, was “the first black man on film I could identify with. He was a hero who broke the rules because he didn’t want to compromise who he was.”
The movie, a lesson in making hard choices in life, still resonates with Rhymes.
“Shaft had to sacrifice the things he loved the most to do the things he knew had to be done,” says the rapper. “Shaft had to turn in his f—— badge and gun in the movie to catch a criminal — a murderer.”
So when Rhymes was offered the role of Rasaan, he seized the opportunity.
“This film represents things I agree with,” he says. “Rasaan is the dude in the film who pretty much goes through thick and thin with Shaft. Friendship, loyalty, commitment and reliability are Rasaan. These are the qualities we need as a people.”
As for the music, Rhymes was equally impressed.
“Isaac Hayes won an Oscar for the [original] soundtrack. That s— was unheard of then,” he says.
The famed wah-wah guitars and brass blast hooks of Hayes’ classic “Theme From Shaft” make it one of the most memorable compositions from the ’70s.
It also helped pave the way for rap, according to Rhymes.
“The song has done so much for the hip-hoppers,” he says. “We have sampled it and exposed the younger generation to it, and that has preserved the value of that sound.”