Busta Rhymes Tells Rappers to Stop 'Little Petty Beefs' In Emotional BET Lifetime Achievement Award Speech

The BET awards were held on Sunday night, where Rhymes took the stage to accept his trophy, clearly emotional. "So, I'm gonna wear it on my sleeve. I do wanna cry," said the rapper, now 51, before getting choked up. Though he said he was given 2 minutes to speak, he wound up going for a solid 13.

As he spoke, he first acknowledged his six children, many who attended.

"My oldest child was a 3 year old in the 'Woo-Hah!!' video back in '96," began Rhymes. "He's 30. He's right here. I went on, and I had five more kids after that. So, I got six beautiful children. Five out of the six of them is here, T'ziah, Mariah, Cacie, T'khi, Trillian and the young boss who's home."

He also shared the story of his career and how he was "scared" after Leaders of the New School broke up in the early '90s.

"I ain't like the responsibility of making a full song," he said of being a solo artist. "I'm good with the getting to the 16 bars, busting everybody's ass and getting up out of here."

"So, I got kicked out of the group, and I was scared," added Rhymes, who described how he hustled to try and make it on other musicians tracks.

"I knew all of the receptionists that worked at the studios, and I would call them — 'Who's working in there tonight?' And they would tell me, and I would go to this little weed spot," he recalled, saying he would buy slow-burning cigars before heading to the studio.

"I would act like I was working in those studio rooms the night before and I forgot something in there. 'Y'all, I left my rhyme book. I gotta get something. I gotta look for something. Good to see y'all. Can I come through?'" he continued, adding that he would light up a cigar before going in, knowing nobody would kick him out if he started passing it around.

"And when they asked me what was I doing, I said, 'Let me go in the booth and do it. I ain't telling you my rhyme until you let me in the booth,' and I go in the booth and I spit," Busta continued, noting that later on when the musicians would request his verse on the song, he charged them them, which was how he was able to support his first son.

"Yo, send that invoice for five grand, send that one for 10 grand, send that one for 15 grand. $30-40,000 a week, I ain't got to split it up with nobody in the group. I liked that. Long story short, by default, I pioneered the feature," he noted.

He also continued to encourage other rappers to to spread love.

"I see so many people in here that I've known and I've grown with for a long time, and y'all watched me grow, and I love y'all, and I know y'all love me. But I'm a real giver of love. Sometimes I know I might overwhelm you. I wanna hug you, and I won't let you go. I shake your hand," said Rhymes, once again getting choked up.

"It took so long to get me this, I got so much to say," he continued toward the end of his speech, before telling other rappers to "stop these little petty beefs that we be doing in rap."

"Y'all messing up the bag. Y'all messing up the energy. I don't like when I talk to these dudes that run these streaming platforms and they talking about, 'You know, we turning the consumer off because there's so much little this and little that going on with you rappers.'" he shared. "We're gonna stop that. We're gonna love each other, and we gonna get to this money."

"It ain't just gotta be about the ass shaking and how much drugs we sold and how much dudes we tied up, how much drugs we doing," he added, before calling out rappers like Ice Spice, Kendrick Lamar, J Cole, Coi Leray, Wu-Tang, and Nas.

"We're gonna stop this narrative like we don't love each other, this divide thing," he said. "It's corny. It's tired. It's whack."

He also told the new generation to learn from the originals, concluding, "Learn what to do and take it and apply it and do it, secure the win. Y'all got to do that now and we're gonna do it with y'all, because we're still bustin' ass!"