Busta Rhymes is tired of wearing his face mask. The platinum-selling artist took a moment from his performance at a live St. Louis concert to share his sentiments on the fluctuating face masks mandates as of recent.
“This is my second show in front of human life in the last 15 f——— months,” Busta Rhymes says in the viral video. “Stop trying to take our civil liberties away… No human being is supposed to tell you [that] you can’t even breathe freely! F—- your mask.”
The pandemic has been tough on many people, impacting their employment, housing, social life and family dynamics. For those in the music industry who get their bread and butter from performing live at venues around the world, it has been especially difficult. Covid-19 has wrecked havoc on music artists’ pockets as they’ve had to push album releases back and resort to competing for the attention of audiences with other entertainment alternatives on the Internet.
While people would argue that hip hop artists shouldn’t be impacted by Covid because they’re rich and famous, the constant pressure to keep up appearances and to live a wealthy lifestyle is almost a burden when the pandemic is affecting their work. Can you imagine having an electric bill for a mansion, multiple car leases, and a record label advance loan to have to pay back but no way to make the money? Yikes. And it’s not like these rappers can just go back to working at regular places — at least, not without scrutiny.
So, when Busta Rhymes rambles about the unfairness of having to go through nearly two years of what he calls “weird-a— government policies”, it’s understandable. Still, his moment of uninhibited honesty rubbed some people the wrong way. A cancel campaign is underway on social media to end the spitfire rapper’s career. Alleged longtime fans are committing to throwing away his entire music legacy, which amounts to two decades of hit music and pure (and violent free) entertainment.
Come to think of it, Busta Rhymes has led a good career as a hip hop star, staying out of trouble for the most part and staying in the good graces of fans. It’s a crying shame, but the reality is that people are fearful of the future. They don’t know if another lockdown is around the corner or if it will ever be safe again to not wear a face mask.
A celebrity telling his followers to forget the face mask is quite irresponsible given the statistics on Covid-19 cases. The man shouldn’t be canceled, but maybe the entire incident could be a learning moment for the “Dangerous” rapper and anti-maskers, the same.
