
Who knows what inspired seasoned rappers Busta Rhymes and DJ Clue to get back in the game after enjoying long gaps between releases, but they clearly learned the golden rule of the current rap game: Recruit all-star collaborators. Busta, who hadn’t released an album since 2002 when he put out The Big Bang earlier this year, apparently plans to release Before Hell Freezes Over — which will feature collaborations with Pharrell, Dr. Dre, and the late Jay Dilla — sometime next spring-ish.
Meanwhile DJ Clue hasn’t put out an offical album all his own since 2001, but on December 19th he’ll release The Professional, Part 3. Blink a couple of times cuz this list of collaborators is long: Kanye West (who apparently co-wrote the first single “Like This”), Fabolous, Snoop Dogg, Young Jeezy and Juelz Santana, Jadakiss, Swizz Beatz, Mike Jones and Paul Wall (who worked with Clue on the aptly titled “Grill & Woman”), and Fat Joe among others. Whew. That was exhausting.
As long as artists continue to insist on making albums for/with each other, thereby assuring that all contemporary rap records will sound virtually indistinguishable, let’s nominate some new blood in the collaboration game! Who would you like to see join forces? Does the perfect collaboration equation still produce innovative tunes?

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- Portions of Album Content Provided by All Music Guide © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC.