Perhaps realizing the song needed a promotional boost, it seemed to occur to Mariah Carey only a week after the single dropped that she ought say something on her social media about “Where I Belong,” the third single from Busta Rhymes’ tenth album, Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God. Thus, she delivered the typically shade-oozing caption accompanying a clip of the video, “I live for the ‘nostalgia’ of this new collaboration with my friend, the iconic Busta!!!! Watch the video for WHERE I BELONG.” It seems Mariah is indicating she doesn’t think (can’t think) 2003 was all that long ago. Alas, it was—in addition to being the establishing year for how this whole music video storyline came to be on “I Know What You Want.”
It was the second single from Busta Rhymes’ sixth album, It Ain’t Safe No More, and served as a much-needed boost to his record sales after the slumping debut single from it, “Make It Clap” (and yeah, if Gwen Stefani’s recent “Slow Clap” is any indication, songs with that word in it just aren’t a go). The premise of the first video is key to understanding its sequel, which we didn’t know we needed until now. Co-starring La’Shontae “Tae” Heckard and Michael Jai White, the plot quickly takes on a Frank Miller-esque vibe (complete with the graphic novel flourishes that also persist in “Where I Belong”). To introduce us to the setup, Busta gets into the backseat of a car with White, who informs him, “I need you to look after wifey for me. You da only man I trust, you know dat.” Busta assures, “I got you, whatever you need.”
Soon, White is taking him to his then state-of-the-art casa, where catching his first glimpse of Tae proves to him that this “little assignment” is going to be more difficult than he previously imagined, at least where resisting temptation is concerned. And as White is on his way out, Tae appears as though she’s reached her threshold on tolerating his constant absence, even if that’s what’s required to keep her accustomed to the life of luxury that’s been set up for her. You might say she’s an “Automatic Princess,” the name of Mariah’s jewelry line (a short-lived enterprise that was briefly sold at Claire’s) being peddled throughout the video. Resigned to losing her man yet again to “the road” (or wherever), Tae, wearing a peak 00s “fashion top,” plops down exasperatedly onto the bed and starts thumbing through a Sin City-like graphic novel called Give It To Me. You know, in honor of the song’s chorus.
Busta watches her lustfully through the security cameras, while his Flipmode members stand around generally “guarding” the premises. Eerily enough, this entire scenario smacks of the tea Mariah spilled in her memoir regarding how living on Tommy Mottola’s fifty-one-acre estate, trapped inside of his nine-bedroom mansion (which she dubbed “Sing Sing,” the notorious prison located a mere thirty-seven minutes away), was pretty much tantamount to what Tae is enduring. Constantly monitored, stifled and mistrusted, it’s no wonder Busta is looking more and more like a sweet meal ticket out of the joint. Or so she would have liked to believe… for instead, all that develops is a sexual dalliance that ceases the moment White walks back in the door to the tune of the lyrics, “It’s been a few months in PA, you haven’t seen me/You lookin’ good in that Gucci bikini/38 carats, your ring lookin’ freezy/No matter what I do in the world, you never leave me.” In other words, she ain’t goin’ nowhere and Busta ain’t gonna rescue her. Indeed, it is instead, ironically, the people who turn out to be her kidnappers that will end up “freeing” her, with the video ending on a violent cliffhanger of both Busta and Tae being separately bum-rushed by masked men.
And so, now here we are: au présent. The latest installment in the saga opens with Busta sounding like he’s delivering a monologue in the style of Tracy Jordan, narrating, “The past is an animal that chases you forever. The past chases you until it catches you. Her face haunts me.” We then see a page of the aforementioned graphic novel turn to the part where Tae is being muzzled by the hand of her kidnapper, and the title card subsequently reminds, “18 Years Later…”
Busta, who seems to have come up further in the crime underworld since last we met him, answers a call from a lackey who announces, “Yo Busta, I found Tae.” The beat of the song then commences, harkening back to the original’s sound, with an almost “reversed” sort of interpolation. Naturally, it’s produced once again by Rick Rock, who was largely responsible for the auditory stylings of “I Know What You Want.” As Busta laments that he shouldn’t have been wasting all these years without Tae—should have somehow come to her rescue sooner—he laments, “Too long I’ve been messin’ with the wrong girl/Should’ve known that you was right where I belong, girl.” The thing is, however, that he’s still going through all this detective work to find her for the sole benefit of White, his boss who can’t believe Busta actually unearthed his “wifey” after all this time.
Soon, women in burqas are involved as Busta sits inside a diner doing something like reconnaissance, but is ostensibly just allowing for a money shot of the breakfast food he’s being served. The “multicultural” vibe (or is it just appropriative?) continues when Busta and White walk into some simulation-type room where a slew of samurais awaits, flanking the burqa-clad ringleader in red who we soon find out is—shock!—Tae herself. Juicier still, she confesses (via thought bubble) to White, “I wasn’t taken.” Oh no, this whole time she’s just been hiding out. Presumably so she could have continued secret trysts with Bussa Bus (but he seems just as surprised as White so maybe not). So it is that White seethes (again, via thought bubble), “You will both pay for your disloyalty.” Busta shouts, “Wait!” as though to indicate he’s not ready to go through with a full-fledged relationship with Tae if it means incurring the wrath of White.
This could possibly explain why the concluding graphic then features Tae in a red dress (the only pop of color amid the black and white drawing) crouched on her knees as leaves fall around her dramatically. Are we to take this to mean, with such a continued lack of resolution, there will be a final installment to the tale another eighteen years from now? When Mariah and Busta’s joint home“town” of Long Island is completely underwater? Time will tell.
And while this is certainly not the first “sequel song” we’ve experienced (lest one forgets the likes of Buddy Holly’s “Peggy Sue” and “Peggy Sue Got Married,” Lesley Gore’s “It’s My Party” and “Judy’s Turn to Cry,” David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and “Ashes to Ashes” or Charli XCX featuring Troye Sivan’s “1999” and “2099”), it is definitely one we weren’t aware we had been unnecessarily living without for so long. This notion is further compounded by the knowledge that the song was actually recorded in 2017, along with the video being filmed that year as well. What, exactly, were Mariah and Busta waiting for? Perhaps, like Britney and Rihanna, they weren’t comfortable releasing their musical masterpiece while the Orange One was in office.
