''Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God'' is the tenth

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

by American rapper

Busta Rhymes Trevor George Smith Jr. (born May 20, 1972), known professionally as Busta Rhymes, is an American rapper, singer and actor. Chuck D of Public Enemy gave him the moniker Busta Rhymes, after National Football League, NFL and Canadian Football Lea ...

, published on October 30, 2020. The album features

guest appearance The term guest appearance generally denotes the appearance of a guest in an artistic or pop-culture setting. The guests themselves (referred to as guest artists, featured artists, guest stars, or guest fighters, depending on context), are disting ...

s from

Eminem Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), known professionally as Eminem, is an American rapper, songwriter, and record producer. Regarded as one of the greatest and most influential rappers of all time, he is credited with popula ...

Kendrick Lamar Kendrick Lamar Duckworth (born June 17, 1987) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer. Regarded as one of the greatest rappers of all time, he was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music, becoming the first music ...

Mariah Carey Mariah Carey ( ; born March 27, 1969) is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Songbird Supreme" by ''Guinness World Records'', Carey is known for her five-octave voc ...

, Anderson .Paak,

Q-Tip Cotton swabs (American English) or cotton buds (British English), also Q-tips ( proprietary eponym), are wads of cotton wrapped around a short rod made of wood, rolled paper, or plastic. They are most commonly used for ear cleaning, although th ...

Rick Ross William Leonard Roberts II (born January 28, 1976), known professionally as Rick Ross, is an American rapper. An influential figure in modern Hip-hop, hip hop music, Rick Ross has become known for his "Wiktionary:booming, booming" vocal perfor ...

Mary J. Blige Mary Jane Blige ( ; born January 11, 1971) is an American singer, songwriter, rapper, actress, and entrepreneur. Often referred to as the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Queen of Hip-Hop Soul" and "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Qu ...

Rapsody Marlanna Evans (born January 21, 1983), better known by her stage name Rapsody, is an American rapper. After signing with music producer 9th Wonder's music label It's a Wonderful World Music Group, she released a series of mixtapes and collab ...

Ol' Dirty Bastard Russell Tyrone Jones (November 15, 1968 – November 13, 2004), known professionally as Ol' Dirty Bastard (often abbreviated as ODB), was an American rapper. He was one of the founding members of the New York rap group Wu-Tang Clan, which forme ...

Rakim William Michael Griffin Jr. (born January 28, 1968), better known by his stage name Rakim (), is an American rapper. He is one half of Golden age hip-hop, golden age hip hop duo Eric B. & Rakim, with whom he released four albums: ''Paid in Full ...

Pete Rock Peter O. Phillips (born June 21, 1970), better known by his stage name Pete Rock, is an American record producer, DJ and rapping, rapper. He is widely recognized as one of the greatest hip hop producers of all time, and is often mentioned along ...

Vybz Kartel Adidja Azim Palmer (born 7 January 1976), better known as Vybz Kartel, is a Jamaican dancehall Toasting (Jamaican music), deejay. Among his various nicknames, he is referred to as Worl' Boss, Teacha and King of Dancehall. As summarized by ''Roll ...

Bell Biv DeVoe Bell Biv DeVoe, also known as BBD, is an American music group from Boston, Massachusetts, formed from members of New Edition, consisting of Ricky Bell (singer), Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins and Ronnie DeVoe. The band is best known for their debut ...

M.O.P. M.O.P. (short for Mash Out Posse) is an American hip-hop duo composed of rappers Billy Danze and Lil' Fame, best known for their song " Ante Up." The group has frequently collaborated with DJ Premier. The group is part of the Gang Starr Fou ...

, Nikki Grier,

Chris Rock Christopher Julius Rock (born February 7, 1965) is an American comedian, actor, and filmmaker. He first gained prominence for his stand-up routines in the 1980s in which he tackled subjects including race relations, human sexuality, and obse ...

, and

Louis Farrakhan Louis Farrakhan (; born Louis Eugene Walcott; May 11, 1933) is an American religious leader who heads the Nation of Islam (NOI), a Black nationalism, black nationalist organization. Farrakhan is notable for his leadership of the 1995 Million M ...

. It is a sequel to 1998's '' E.L.E. (Extinction Level Event): The Final World Front'', and his first studio album since 2012's '' Year of the Dragon.'' ''Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God'' was met with generally favorable reviews and debuted at number seven on the US ''Billboard'' 200 chart, earning 38,000

album-equivalent unit The album-equivalent unit, or album equivalent, often shortened to just unit, is a sales metric in the music industry that defines the number of streaming media, songs streamed and music download, songs downloaded equal to one Record sales, tradi ...

s in its first week.

Background

Busta Rhymes first announced the album in 2013. Over the course of 2014, Busta Rhymes continued to do interviews promoting the album, and released the singles " Twerk It" featuring

Nicki Minaj Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty (born December 8, 1982), known professionally as Nicki Minaj ( ), is a Trinidadian rapper, singer, and songwriter. Regarded as the "Queen of Rap" and one of the most influential rappers of all time, she is noted for her ...

, "

Thank You "Thank you" (often expanded to ''thank you very much'' or ''thanks a lot'', or informally abbreviated to ''thanks'' or alternately as ''many thanks''Geoffrey Leech, ''The Pragmatics of Politeness'' (2014), p. 200.) is a common expression of gr ...

" featuring

Lil Wayne Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. (born September27, 1982), known professionally as Lil Wayne, is an American rapper. He is often regarded as one of the most influential hip hop artists of his generation, as well as one of the greatest rappers of all ...

and

Kanye West Ye ( ; born Kanye Omari West ; June 8, 1977) is an American rapper, singer and record producer. One of the most prominent figures in hip-hop, he is known for his varying musical style and polarizing cultural and political commentary. After ...

, and " Calm Down" featuring

. Despite the heavy promotion around this time, promotion for the album ceased completely in July 2014, when it was announced that Rhymes had amicably departed

Cash Money Records Cash Money Records is an American record label founded in 1991 by brothers Ronald "Slim" Williams and Birdman (rapper), Bryan "Baby" Williams. The label gained prominence in the late 1990s for having signed and released albums for New Orleans– ...

. The album was announced once again on August 17, 2020, via a YouTube video starring

. It released officially on October 30, 2020. The "Reloaded" version of the album released on November 2, 2020, featuring three brand new tracks and the previously-released 2014 single "Calm Down" with Eminem. An official deluxe edition was also released later that month on November 27, 2020, not only featuring the bonus tracks from the Reloaded reissue, but also four more extra tracks, including a remix of "Czar" with new verses by

and rapper CJ.

Singles

The album's lead single "The Don and the Boss", featuring

and J-Doe, was released on August 21, 2020. The album's second single "YUUUU" featuring Anderson .Paak was released on September 18, 2020. "Where I Belong" featuring

was released as the album's third single on April 7, 2021, and is set to be released to American

rhythmic contemporary radio Rhythmic contemporary, also known as Rhythmic Top 20, Rhythmic Top 30, Rhythmic Top 40, Rhythmic CHR or rhythmic crossover, is a primarily American music-radio format that includes a mix of EDM, upbeat rhythmic pop, hip-hop and upbeat R&B hits. ...

stations on April 13.

Critical reception

''Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God'' was met with generally favorable reviews. At

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an

average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...

score of 71, based on six reviews.

Commercial performance

''Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God'' debuted at number seven on the US ''Billboard'' 200 chart, earning 38,000

s (including 17,000 copies as pure album sales) in its first week. This became Busta Rhymes' seventh US top-ten album. The album also accumulated a total of 27.78 million on-demand streams of the album's songs that week.

Track listing

Charts

References