What does a major label debut mean for a rapper like Benny the Butcher? The Buffalo MC has dropped bountiful bars over countless solo projects since 2004. He can boast more commas in his bank account than most reading this will ever see, and his name already rings bells in the hip-hop community.
But according to Benny, those bells don’t toll loudly enough. Signing to Def Jam at this point in his career is a business move. He wants their resources, platform, and, yeah, their massive checks. For the house that L.L. Cool J built, this also says that the corporate institution still sees value in the type of hip-hop it produced with ease in its heyday: Intricate raps over gritty beats backed by soul samples that don’t reek of desperation for mainstream appeal. For anyone thinking Everybody Can’t Go might soften Benny’s razor blade edges, you can rest at ease. If anything, the album adds more layers to the formula and digs deeper into the man behind the persona.
Everybody Can’t Go elicits sympathy for the bad guy. Not just for the rapper who says he’s currently in “villain mode” but for the guys who grew up in similar conditions and turned into street pharmacists as a way out. Songs like “Jermanie’s Graduation” (“Me teary-eyed and gullible/ I lived it with a mother who struggled through addiction I know every side of drug abuse”) display the inherent duality and contradictions often present in the best hardcore hip-hop. Calling this “coke rap” belittles the subject matter while possibly making it more palatable for audiences who can’t, or don’t want to, engage with conditions that foster the so-called “gangster shit.”
Benny brings that introspection to the table when discussing the paranoia that breeds a cold heart on “TMVTL,” or the fact that he sleeps easy despite his past deeds, considering he used to survive on “sardines out the can” on “Pillow Talk & Slander.” Benny doesn’t preach, but he subtly tells those fingers pointing at the bad guy not to throw stones in the glass house that is America.
Sometimes that subtle touch doesn’t help. Benny built his brand on exposing realities rather than analyzing them. But his approach means it’s hard reconciling music mired in the effects of systemic racism that also contains a line seemingly supporting the twice-impeached, coup-instigating former president Donald Trump. “Know I’ma win, like the election if Trump run again,” he raps on the title track. Benny stated his Trump support pretty emphatically on Elon Musk’s hellscape and left no room for interpretation. Fast forward to the current press run for Everything Must Go and he’s more than a little ambiguous.
Biting off something as big as Trump demands elaboration and a larger context. For better or worse, that’s not Benny’s style, nor was it ever a part of his approach. Thankfully, the other 99.9% of the album is devoted to Benny’s braggadocio and observational insights.
