Benny the Butcher Embraces Villain Mode on New Album Everybody Can’t Go
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The post Benny the Butcher Embraces Villain Mode on New Album Everybody Can’t Go appeared first on Consequence.
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.
And he doesn’t do it alone, either. Everybody Can’t Go is just the Griselda painting on a giant canvas, so the usual suspects tag along. Armani Cesar and Stove God Cooks make appearances. The former continues broadening her subject matter while the latter spits an atypical verse that shows Stove God does a lot more than, well, cook. Jadakiss drops by in rare form, and even Snoop Dogg sounds energized in his brief but memorable guest spot.
The album also addresses the enormous elephant in the room: Are the three cornerstones that started Griselda Records still cool with one another? Rumors of Westside Gunn, Conway the Machine, and Benny going their separate ways got loud over the years, and their status is spelled out on “Jermanie’s Graduation” (“I’m hearing rumors start to fly that we split the triangle, nah/ any talks of that maniacal but y’all buy it though, why?”) and the penultimate “Griselda Express.” This sole track featuring the trio shows them doing what they do best over another impeccable Alchemist beat. Like Cash Money Records was an army in 1999, Griselda is a locomotive in 2024. According to the title and Benny’s opening words, they’re still an unstoppable force. Judging by their performances on the song, those words might become more than just catchy adlibs. It gives fans hope and teases another group album.
Alchemist and Hit-Boy tag team on the album’s production that provides the perfect backdrop for Benny’s usual disrespectful wit aimed at inferior rappers or foes with a smaller bank account. Besides the final song, the beats stick to a rugged yet soulful boom-bap sound without apologizing for or polishing the aesthetic. If one song feels out of place, it’s “How to Rap.” It’s fantastic that Benny wears his heart on his sleeve for rapping in an era where many of his contemporaries do anything but and don’t want the “rapper” label. The song resembles Jay-Z’s “1-900-Hustler” or The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Ten Crack Commandments,” but not in the best way. It’s also out of place within the album’s structure, a bigger deal with only 12 songs on the menu.
Then there’s “Big Tymers,” undoubtedly an experiment. Benny over a more contemporary beat isn’t new. But who ever imagined him using auto-tune? It doesn’t feel out of place so much as it shocks the system. The song feels like an extension of the business decision he made signing with the legendary label. It’s also a weird ending to this particular body of work.
Which brings everything back to that question about major label debuts in 2024. It’s hard envisioning Benny becoming Def Jam’s main marquee artist with Everybody Can’t Go, but that has nothing to do with him or the album’s quality. Hip-hop is in a very different place today than it was during the Clinton administration, and the way we consume music has changed. With an entire catalog behind him, what can Benny the Butcher do to make this feel like a momentous occasion rather than just another album? Everybody Can’t Go is a dope project but it doesn’t separate itself from anything that came before it.
He wants his music in front of a larger audience, but in a world where songs become hits through TikTok videos or larger trends, that’s a tall task for any rapper who traffics in Benny’s rough-around-the-edges hip-hop. Everybody Can’t Go means it’s not for everyone, and maybe that’s for the best. This is Benny the Butcher, uncompromised and unflinching. His old fans wouldn’t have it any other way.
Benny the Butcher Embraces Villain Mode on New Album Everybody Can’t Go
Marcus Shorter
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