Review
Genre and Mood
Busta Rhymes, Mariah Carey and the Flipmode Squad meet on I Know What You Want, a hip-hop record that, in the words of Billboard’s Brian Garrity, finds Busta taking an R&B turn. It is a romantic, alluring song about desire inside a long relationship, sung and rapped rather than shouted, by an artist known for the opposite.
Song Summary
Songfacts sums up the story: a long-term couple, the man often away on the road, so they are together less often than they would like, and the reunions are worth the wait. Rick Rock, who had produced Jay-Z’s Change the Game, made the beat. The memorable detail is the chorus: Busta and Carey share it, and his half was never meant to be his.
Musical Breakdown
We found no source that describes the arrangement section by section, so this follows the parts the sources name.
Chorus
Busta originally wanted an R&B singer for the male part and recorded a reference vocal himself. Carey asked for the demo and insisted he was the right man for it; she later said that rappers were not really doing the singing thing then, but she loved it.
Main Section
Four members of the Flipmode Squad, Spliff Star, Baby Sham, Rah Digga and Rampage, contribute verses, turning a duet into a crew record. The album version runs well over five minutes, long enough for all of them.
Concepts in Focus
The <a href=“https://korczis.github.io/sonic-playground/concept/featured-artist/” class=“concept-link font-medium text-primary-700 underline decoration-dotted underline-offset-4 hover:decoration-solid dark:text-primary-400” data-concept=“featured-artist” title=“A guest performer credited on another artist’s track, usually as “feat.”: a rapper’s verse, a singer’s hook or a second voice. Features bring together different styles and audiences and are central to hip-hop, R&B and dance music.“>featured artist credit works in two directions here. Carey brings a pop star’s voice and audience to a rap single; the Flipmode Squad brings Busta’s own crew. Compare Busta Rhymes, Jamal – Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See (feat. Jamal), recorded at the same Soundtrack Studios five years earlier, before the R&B turn.
The hook is a shared one, and its charm is the contrast between Carey’s practised voice and a rapper singing a part he wrote as a placeholder.
The music video, directed by Chris Robinson and premiered on BET’s Access Granted on 17 April 2003, sets the crew and Carey in an expensive mansion. A woman played by La’Shontae Heckard reads a graphic novel in the style of Frank Miller while Busta watches over her; her husband is played by Michael Jai White, and the book briefly comes alive as animation.
Artistic Context
The song was recorded in 2002 at Soundtrack Studios in New York and released on It Ain’t Safe No More…, Busta’s sixth album, on 26 November 2002 through Flipmode and J Records; it was his last album for J. It became the album’s second single in early 2003. According to MusicBrainz, a British edition of Carey’s own album Charmbracelet also carries it.
Impact and Reception
It reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100, Busta’s highest-charting song until 2005, spent 21 weeks in the top 40 and went platinum; it also reached number three in the UK and topped the European Hot 100. In 2020 the two reunited for Where I Belong, which continues the video’s story. Press play and listen for the voice that was meant to be replaced.
