Liner Notes · No. 005
"Scenario" by A Tribe Called Quest: the B-side
Quick hall pass: the posse cut a 19-year-old Busta Rhymes ran away with got rapped by Leonardo DiCaprio and keeps coming back on stage. Here's the B-side.
📰 FAST FACTS
- Def Jam Rapstar added it radio edit only. So you could attempt Busta’s verse at home, in the version your mom would allow. (Engadget)
- The Dance Central 2 routine cost 240 Microsoft Points. Remember Microsoft Points? Neither does your wallet. (Harmonix)
- The Library of Congress added The Low End Theory to the National Recording Registry alongside Wu-Tang Clan’s debut. Federal archivists, now with taste. (The Fader)
- Q-Tip announced three solo albums in 2020. None has come out yet. Tribe fans are very, very good at waiting. (Stereogum)
On this record
TRACK 1
Leonardo DiCaprio raps "Scenario"
Leo rapped it at a West Hollywood birthday party and reportedly lost a few lines. Busta's verse has humbled living rooms and video games ever since.
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September 2014: Leonardo DiCaprio, then 39, rapped "Scenario" at the club 1OAK in West Hollywood during owner Richie Akiva's birthday party, with Jamie Foxx helping out. A DJ posted it on Instagram and it went everywhere. Reports noted he lost a few lines. Busta's verse is hard. Ask anyone who has tried it at karaoke.
Two days later he was named a UN Messenger of Peace at the climate march in New York. He did not rap during the speech. A missed opportunity for world peace.
Leo is not alone. Def Jam Rapstar added it in 2010 so anyone could attempt Busta's verse into a microphone, and Harmonix made it a downloadable routine for Dance Central 2, rated "Legit" difficulty. Your living room has heard things.
Q-Tip built the "Scenario" beat on a borrowed drum part. Whose?
If you watched the pop-ups, this one is a gift.
That's Side A. Flip the tape.
Side B is where it gets weird:
- The nights it brought everyone back on stage, from Arsenio to the Rock Hall.
- The Joey Bada$$ song built on the same beat.
- Busta's new album, built from J Dilla beats.
Free, every Tuesday. One song, the story you never heard, and a 10-minute hall pass from the doomscroll. Already subscribed? Enter your email to unlock.
▶ SIDE B
TRACK 2
From Arsenio to the Rock Hall
From Arsenio in 1992 to the Rock Hall in 2024, including a tearful 2015 Native Tongues reunion, three months before Phife died.
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1992: Tribe and Leaders of the New School performed it together on The Arsenio Hall Show, and that TV spot helped push the song. Somewhere, a studio audience is still woofing.
July 14, 2012: closing the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival, Busta reunited Leaders of the New School for the first time in years, then brought out Q-Tip and Phife Dawg for "Scenario."
December 2015, at Hot 97's Hot for the Holidays show in Newark: Busta staged a mini Native Tongues reunion with Q-Tip, Phife, Jarobi, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Dinco D and Charlie Brown, and finished the song on his knees in tears. Phife died three months later, in March 2016. It was one of the last times they all did it together.
October 19, 2024: A Tribe Called Quest went into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, inducted by Dave Chappelle. The tribute brought out Busta, Queen Latifah, Common, De La Soul, Black Thought and The Roots, and Busta did "Scenario." Of course Busta did "Scenario."
TRACK 3
The beat that keeps coming back
Built from a Hendrix drum part and a Brother Jack McDuff organ line. The remix was Kid Hood's only release; Joey Bada$$ borrowed the beat in 2014.
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Q-Tip built it from a Hendrix drum part and a Brother Jack McDuff organ line, and people have been trying to borrow it back ever since.
- 1992 · The remix. The B-side swapped in a new beat and a newcomer, Kid Hood. He was killed days after recording it. It's his only release.
- 2014 · Joey Bada$$, "No. 99." Producer Statik Selektah handed the Brooklyn rapper a barely altered version of the "Scenario" beat. It landed on his debut album, B4.DA.$$, in January 2015. Subtle, it was not.
▶ WATCH THE CONTENDERS
Battle of the versions: which "Scenario" wins?
Cast your vote. Results in the next issue. Choose carefully: we're judging you.
TRACK 4
Where Tribe and Busta are now
Tribe's last album came out in 2016, the year Phife died. The Low End Theory is in the National Recording Registry, and Busta's still rapping over Dilla beats.
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Phife Dawg died in March 2016. Tribe's last album, We Got It From Here... Thank You 4 Your Service, came out that November and was billed as the final one. No new Tribe music or tour has been announced since.
In April 2022 the Library of Congress added The Low End Theory, the album "Scenario" closes, to the National Recording Registry. Your old cassette is now a federally recognized treasure. Do not rewind it with a pencil.
On February 1, 2026, Q-Tip presented Pharrell with the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award at the Grammys, and Pharrell used his speech to talk about what Tribe meant to him.
Busta got star #2,818 on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on August 1, 2025. On August 25, 2026, he released Dillagence 2, a 19-track album built from some of the nearly 300 beats J Dilla gave him, made with Dilla's estate and his mother, Ma Dukes. Dilla died in 2006. Twenty years later, his beats are still finding new verses.
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