Benny the Butcher

Benny The Butcher Explains His Absence From Drake And Kanye West’s Latest Albums

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Benny The Butcher is a part of Buffalo’s gritty Griselda collective, a group that stands as one of the most active in the music world. The group has released three albums and a mixtape so far in 2021, with more expected to arrive in the coming months. The rappers of Griselda have contributed to multiple songs as well, with one of the most recent being Kanye West’s “Keep My Spirit Alive,” which features Conway The Machine and Westside Gunn in addition to KayCyy, from West’s tenth album, Donda.

Many questioned, however, why Benny The Butcher was absent from the song and the rapper recently responded to the question and addressed another expected collaboration with a different big-named rapper.

“I don’t think Ye wanted me on there,” Benny said when he asked about his absence from the Donda track during an interview on Twitch with Connected. “I don’t care about it but it’s cool. I got all types of rapper homeboys that’s friends, that’s dope, that’s legends. Everytime they’re dropping an album, I’m not asking why I’m not on that stuff.”

Benny also spoke about his long-awaited collaboration with Drake and why it didn’t appear on Certified Lover Boy.

“Drake is Drake. He’s the biggest artist in the world, so ain’t no tellin’ where that song gon’ land,” Benny said. “We got the song, I played it for all the homies. It’s a vibe and he gotta place that where he sees fit to it.” He added, “I feel like it definitely would have fit in and definitely would have mixed things up, but I also see why he didn’t put it on there.”

You can watch a clip of the interview in the post above.

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DMX And Griselda’s Benny, Conway, And Westside Gunn Get Busy On ‘Hood Blues’

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Fans of gritty, ultraviolent New York rap rejoice. DMX‘s long-awaited track with the members of Griselda Records, “Hood Blues,” has arrived and it doesn’t disappoint. Opening with a slinky, sinister kick-snare combo and the signature ad-libs of its primary performers — X’s growl and Gunn’s tongue-trilling automatic rifle effects — the new track hearkens back to an era when visiting the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time could result in some pretty unpleasant experiences.

With “Hood Blues” providing a guidepost to the sound of X’s upcoming posthumous album Exodus, fans now have a better idea of what to expect from the Swizz Beatz-produced project, which X’s longtime collaborator played in full for a select group of DJs and fellow industry pros during a private listening session on Zoom last week.

It’s certainly vintage-sounding DMX material, built around a sample of Lee Mason & His Orchestra’s “Shady Blues” and recalling Swizz’s more recent, stripped-down work more so than the raucous, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink synth approach he used earlier in his career. If Exodus continues in the same vein of “Hood Blues,” then it should satisfy longtime X fans and newcomers alike — and, on a personal note, I can’t wait to hear Jay-Z and Nas on a beat in this style, which could bring out the latent chemistry they’ve only rarely been able to tap into.

Listen to “Hood Blues” above. Exodus is out 5/28 on Def Jam.

Benny The Butcher And Freddie Gibbs Lend Their Alchemy To Bobby Sessions On ‘Gold Rolex’

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Over the past year, Benny The Butcher and Freddie Gibbs have developed an indelible sort of chemistry, appearing on each other’s projects and demonstrating the smooth interplay between their unique lyrical styles, bonded together by the throughline of surviving the drug game and taking nearly ten years to blow up in rap. They lend this alchemic balance to newcomer Bobby Sessions on his new single, “Gold Rolex.”

Featuring a glittering, soulful beat with plenty of the throwback energy that flows through both the Butcher and Gibbs’ own music, “Gold Rolex” finds Sessions taking a step away from his Dallas-bred style to adopt a more traditionalist flow that fits better alongside the Buffalo, New York native Benny and Freddie’s midwestern twang. While longtime fans of Sessions’ more bookish style might be surprised to hear him fitting in alongside the more street-centric, elder rappers, they shouldn’t; Bobby’s always been quite versatile as he illustrates with each new track.

From his work on RVTLN 3: The Price Of Freedom to helping craft “I’m A King,” the theme song from Coming 2 America, with Megan Thee Stallion, Bobby’s always been able to transform to suit the needs of his tracks above all.

Listen to “Gold Rolex” above.

Freddie Gibbs is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Benny The Butcher And The Late Chinx Are Winning ‘Overall’ In Their Animated New Video

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Just five months after he dropped his last full-length effort, Burden Of Proof, Benny The Butcher returned to the music scene in February with a new EP, The Plugs I Met 2. Now there’s a new video for the latter’s track “Overall,” which features the late Chinx. This month marks six years since Chinx, born Lionel Du Fon Pickens, died from a gunshot wound. In order to incorporate the late rapper into the video, Benny opted for an animated effort.

The “Overall” video is the fourth that Benny’s released since he dropped The Plugs I Met 2. He first teamed up with 2 Chainz for their video for “Plug Talk,” which saw the two artists attending a “Hustler’s Anonymous” meeting. Next came one for “Survivor’s Remorse,” with Rick Hyde, and another for “When Tony Met Sosa.”

While The Plugs I Met 2 was a solid follow-up to its predecessor, it didn’t come without controversy. Fat Joe, who appeared on the track “Talkin’ Back,” faced criticism for anti-Asian remarks he made on the song. A short time later, he responded to the backlash in a tweet writing, “I did that verse a year ago when the news was calling it the wuhan virus before they called it COVID i support and love all my asian brothers and sisters never hate.”

You can watch the video for “Overall” above.

The Plugs I Met 2 is not via Black Soprano Family. Get it here.

Griselda Records Fans Started A TikTok Dance, Prompting Hilarious Reactions From Benny And Westside Gunn

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When most fans think of TikTok dance trends, the songs that spring to mind are usually poppy, upbeat tunes with simple, repetitive lyrics that lend themselves to the format of exuberant teens waving their arms in synchronized, somewhat goofy choreography. Griselda Records wouldn’t seem to fit the bill, with its members’ mostly gloomy beats and intricate, belligerent bars about harrowing street encounters. However, fans got the bright idea to combine the two seemingly opposed ideals, resulting in an atypical TikTok trend that prompted some hilarious reactions from the rappers themselves.

When HipHopDX posted the above clip of a fan working some complex choreo to Benny’s verse of Westside Gunn’s “Gods Don’t Bleed,”, it caught the eyes of both Benny The Butcher and Westside Gunn, who both quote-tweeted it with their impressions in the form of emojis. While Gunn seemed delighted, writing, “I needed this” with a handful of laughing emojis, Benny was a bit more nonplussed, posting a blushing emoji that spoke volumes.

While Conway, Daringer, and Armani Caesar all have yet to react, seeing the Griselda top dog’s approving reaction could very well prompt a new, albeit unusual dance trend on TikTok, bringing a different type of hip-hop to prominence on the app. More versions began popping up in the comments, putting his movements to songs from Danny Brown, Sade, and more. So, if you’re looking for the new trend, that’s probably the one to really take off — editing incongruous songs over footage of ubiquitous dance routines.

Check out the full version of “Gods Don’t Bleed” below.

Benny The Butcher’s ‘When Tony Met Sosa’ Compares Working With Harry Fraud To A Classic Movie Moment

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Benny The Butcher and Harry Fraud continue the rollout of their collaborative project The Plugs I Met 2 with the video for “When Tony Met Sosa.” The video mostly sees Benny performing his dextrous verses on a rooftop overlooking the city and seated beside a bathtub as a woman soaks in the frothy bubbles. At the very end, there’s a glimpse of the movie Scarface, from which Benny derives the song’s title.

The video for “When Tony Met Sosa” arrives just over two weeks after the clip for the Rick Hyde-featuring “Survivor’s Remorse” and a little over a month since the release of the
The Plugs I Met 2 project, which launched alongside the video for the 2 Chainz-featuring “Plug Talk.” The Plugs videos give a strong push for the Griselda Records rapper — who also appeared on Belly’s comeback single “Money On The Table” — as he capitalizes on the newfound notoriety he’s received since his 2020 breakout, Burden Of Proof and the past year’s string of show-stealing guest appearances. While it may have taken the Griselda gang over ten years to climb to their current position, it looks like they’re taking full advantage, both as a unit and individually.

Watch Benny The Butcher and Harry Fraud’s “When Tony Met Sosa” video.