The hardest group in the game right now is Griselda. Consisting of Westside Gunn; Conway The Machine and Benny The Butcher, I've said before that Benny is currently the best rapper coming out of NY. The Griselda camp's productivity is unquestionable and not many can match them in this day and age. Having dropped the dope Tana Talk 3 last winter, Benny returns with a 7-track EP titled The Plugs I Met.
Beginning with the 'wolf and the blade' story (which was also used as the intro for Dead Prez's debut Let's Get Free), the EP kicks off with a soulful sample loop (Al Green- Look What You Done For Me to be exact) followed by Benny and Philly super-lyricist Black Thought taking turns doing what they do best. No hook, just straight spittin'.
My bitch keep sayin' I'm famous, but it ain't hit me
I'm too ghetto, mellowed out, this Hollywood shit tricky
See, before I knew an A&R, I was weighin' hard
Back when Nicki Minaj was in a trainin' bra
You play this game, you better play hard
The judge'll give you life and later that day, he gon' be playin' golf
The content is mostly drug talk and hood talk. They go hand in hand. That's evident from the project title, the cover (Scarface) and just from previous knowledge of what the Buffalo butcher is about. That's what he's known for and he excels in this field. While some rappers only appear to highlight the 'glamorous' aspect of this activity, the highs and lows of this topic can always lead to covering other topics. Benny shows glimpses of this on TPIM as seen from the lines below.
More bars then them niggas who got hit with the Reagan laws
Spent my daughter first birthday locked in a hole
Rappers y'all compare me too, niggas scared of me too
It make they heart beat faster just hearin the truth
But like I said that's just glimpses and the album as expected is mostly drug talk. The streets will love it.
On the production side of things DJ Shay; Griselda's main producer Daringer and the legendary Alchemist produced 2 beats apiece. Beats were mostly heat for the streets. Other than the aforementioned soulful Crowns For Kings, I would describe everything else as being dark and/or gritty and/or gutter. I'm also curious to hear more from DJ Shay. Although the lesser known of the 3, DJ Shay produced 2 of my fave beats on the EP in Crowns For Kings and 18 Wheeler.
Lyrically, almost every verse I've heard Benny spit has been at least 8/10. His wordplay, delivery and use of multi-syllabic rhyming makes Benny, in my view, the hardest from the East Coast right now. He proved that on Tana Talk 3 and again on TPIM. You have to be of a certain level to go bar for bar with the likes of Black Thought and Pusha T.
This brings me on to guest verses, there's 6 features on this EP which is quite a lot considering this is only 6 tracks but it's an impressive guestlist with Pusha, Black Thought, Jadakiss and Griselda partner Conway dropping dope verses. The lesser known artists pulled their weight as well so this was a rare case of quality AND quantity.
To conclude, though Benny doesn't dig as deep as he did on TT3. He keeps the rap fiends satisfied with his raw uncut coke raps. I'll give this an 8.
FAVES
Beat- Crowns For Kings
Verse- 18 Wheeler
Feature- Pusha T/Conway
Track- Crowns For Kings
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