I'm now traumatised even more by the busy signal. Not kidding about the WTF.

intresting

Okay, so, back in the halcyon days of the late '90s, there was this guy Canibus. He had a minor reputation as a battle rhymer, and then he got some big breaks. Back when the Fugees' The Score was really big, he was kind of Wyclef's protege (Wyclef's weed carrier, on the other hand, was John Forte) for a minute. And Wyclef used his awesome show-biz power to get Canibus an appearance on the extended posse-cut remix of LL Cool J's '4, 3, 2, 1,' with Method Man, Redman and DMX. This is kind of boring so far, but it gets more interesting.

As you may be aware, LL Cool J has a tattoo of a microphone on his arm. And, during Canibus' verse on '4, 3, 2, 1,' he said something like 'Hey, L, gimme that mic on your arm.' And LL, on his verse, said something like 'The mic on my arm's not for amateur MCs.' And Canibus, like, freaked out. First, he said that he wasn't trying to dis L. Then, he released a single called '2nd Round Knockout,' in which he insulted LL like crazy (if Canibus' lyrics are to be believed, he also spent some of this time reading LL's autobiography). Then, he released an album, Can-I-Bus.

Nearly everyone agreed on two things. One, the rhymes are okay, but the beats are awful; and two, it just might be possible that Canibus might be overreacting about this whole LL situation. No, wait, three things: the third is that Canibus made a rather inexplicable choice when he appeared at MTV's Video Music Awards (as part of Wyclef's entourage) covered in silver paint.

Right about this time, LL released (via, like, a white-label 12" or something) a song called 'The Return of the Ripper.' This song was a Canibus dis, though its title alludes to LL's 'Jack the Ripper,' which came out of his more or less legendary feud with Kool Moe Dee. At some point, Wyclef began to distance himself from Canibus, referring to his onetime protege as 'Tin Man' (it's a reference both to the silver-paint stunt and to the Wizard of Oz--Canibus has no heart, get it?). 'Return of the Ripper' was pretty vicious, and as an aside, he referred to Wyclef as 'the Bob Marley imposter.' Moreover, he released a song called 'Rasta Impasta.' Then Wyclef released this song, 'What's Clef Got to Do With It?'

Epilogue: Canibus released at least one more album. It didn't sell. LL Cool J continued to make songs for casual hip-hop fans, people in the club and, most of all, ladies (not that there's anything wrong with that). It seems to me that LL's overdue for another credibility-enhancing rap feud. I suggest picking on Sage Francis. As for Wyclef, well, I'm not sure what he's doing these days.

(This explanation wasn't supposed to be so long. Maybe I'll make it into a blog post or something)