If there’s any expression you can expect to make when listening to a Benny the Butcher song, it’s a perpetual stank face. The first time I listened to a Benny song was in sophomore year of high school huddled in a bathroom with an unreasonably loud Beats Pill playing “Rubber Bands & Weight” from his 2018 album Tana Talk 3. The only word I could muster hearing his distinctly New York delivery over The Alchemist’s hauntingly gritty beat was “HARD.”
I felt profoundly ignorant for not knowing about him already, as his sound was exactly what I used to say was abundantly missing from rap— an nostalgic homage to the raw essence of the genre. My friend explained that he was from Buffalo, so my initial assumption was that he must just be a lone gunner hungry to rap his way to the top of the game. Unbeknownst to me, Benny the Butcher was one of many elite rappers in the Griselda Records collective.
Born and bred in Buffalo in 1984, Benny, real name Jeremie Pennick, forms the nucleus of Griselda Records alongside his cousins Conway the Machine and Westside Gunn, a collective that has single-handedly put their city on the map in the rap scene. Their unmistakable style, easily recognized by grimy, street bars over soulful, sample heavy loops, has long since reached its way to the mainstream of hip-hop, but their growth was only facilitated by their unshakable self-confidence, consistency, and patience.
However, before he ever thought about a rap career, Pennick was focused on learning how to navigate the hurdles of his hometown hood. Years before he was old enough to even drive a car, he was selling heroin to make money for his family, as his mother was an addict herself trying to support her eight children as a single parent. He actually signed to Griselda when he was just 15, a year after he started selling drugs, but his signing didn’t come with a big enough contract for him to consider slowing down his business in the streets.
Opting to continue hustling, Benny was in and out of prison for much of his early adult life. His first sentence was at the age of 18 in 2002, and by 2006 he was locked up in federal prison for violating the conditions of his parole.
It was during this time that his older brother Marchello, who went by MachineGun Black, was shot and killed in a drive by on the same block they both grew up on— Montana Avenue. Black’s death left an indelibly deep-rooted effect on Benny and the rest of Griselda, and unfortunately it wasn’t the only loss that they suffered. DJ Shay, a producer and mentor to Benny, died due to health complications from COVID-19 in 2020.
These scarring experiences lit a fire under Benny to make it out of the streets, as he went on a spree of 10 mixtapes within 5 years. He was still in and out of prison until his final stint in 2011.
Throughout the early years of his career, he operated on a shoestring budget, committing himself to sharpening his craft and putting out work with limited resources while doing whatever he could to make money in the streets. His first mixtape Tana Talk is nowhere to be found online, although it was said to have taken over his hood in 2004, according to his album notes from Tana Talk 4, the series’ final installment. As far as the world is concerned, his career kicked off in 2005 with Tana Talk 2, a classic 2000s mixtape with energetic, hungry bars.
After making it out of prison for good, he began to commit more energy into making music, still hustling on the side to subsidize the resolute pursuit of his dreams. Before dropping his first LP, Tana Talk 3, he released no less than 20 mixtapes. Most of them can’t be found on traditional streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music, but frankly that’s for a reason— around 2016, he officially found his sound.
With Tana Talk 3, he delivered a masterclass in lyricism, parading his prowess as a wordsmith and painting striking narratives about his life in each verse. From the cold streets of Buffalo to suburban kids’ backyards, Benny’s music had people across the world nodding their heads, earning him the start of a cult following as well as rising critical acclaim. Fourteen years after the start of his career, he was finally hitting his stride and reaping the fruits of his labor.
Benny the Butcher and others like him have often been criticized for making music which many believe glorifies gang activity, drug trafficking, and violence. I don’t think people with this view are wrong, because it’s simply a reflection of the cultural and socioeconomic context in which an individual was raised.
If you’ve lived your entire life in the suburbs, you have no real life references to relate to the subject matter, just as someone who grew up in a dangerous, impoverished area probably doesn’t have much of an experiential connection to Taylor Swift songs. If Benny the Butcher’s not for you, he just ain’t for you. But if you clicked a link on your way here and found yourself unthinkingly nodding to the beat, don’t hesitate to go down that rabbit hole. Your playlist will thank you.
