#snoop is benny in this analogy of course

[tuungaq]

benny and macon in the stalag. To Me

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Benny the Butcher Album Review: Everybody Can't Go

(Def Jam)

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Over the course of his rise, Benny the Butcher's been ticking boxes, and Everybody Can't Go might be the biggest checkmark of all. The Buffalo rapper's Def Jam debut isn't so much a linear story of how he started on the streets and arrived at his current throne, as it is a juxtaposition of flexes and contemplation. That is, on the album's best sequences and even within its strongest songs, Benny balances braggadocio with the vulnerability inherent in reflection.

Take a glance at the featured artists and producers involved in Everybody Can't Go, and you can sense its momentousness. He teams up with not only the heavy hitters of his Griselda crew but top rappers of their time like Lil Wayne and Snoop Dogg, the latter of whom helped Benny get his Def Jam deal. Every song is produced by either heady legend The Alchemist or banger expert Hit-Boy. "When I invite 'em to the lab," Benny raps on opener "Jermaine's Graduation" over an Alchemist piano loop, "They be scared to play what they got," proclaiming his musical prowess and shooting down any unfounded rumors that Griselda would be breaking up. It almost makes you forget that earlier in the verse, he waxed on his mother's drug abuse and dealers like him who didn't survive, but with Benny, the ability to switch headspaces on a dime is the product of many lives lived.

Throughout Everybody Can't Go, Benny deftly mixes humor and pathos. He outshines even Jadakiss and Babyface Ray on the snare-heavy "Pillow Talk & Slander", declaring "I got the aura of a boss" and delivering the line of the album, "I lay on a n**ga like Katt Williams' perm," before lamenting that he was never able to provide for his brother (rapper Machine Gun Black) when he was alive, or even bring him along for his current ride. Benny is gripping on "How To Rap", navigating the greed and negativity inherent in street hustling and the music industry, all while subverting expectations. "Turn it down and show 'em that your number was inarguable / And when they double back, you charge 'em triple what they offered you," he raps, letting us in on a pearl of wisdom before winking, "That's how you rap--they probably thought this was a coke song."

Benny and many of the album's featured artists bring the best out of each other, and not just because Lil Wayne hilariously exclaims, "My kennel is a bungalow," on "Big Dog". Snoop Dogg's verse on "Back Again" is ad-libbed and unexpectedly but thankfully casual. Armani Caesar is spritely and horny on "Buffalo Kitchen Club". ("He like what he see in his visual / I make that dick disappear, it's a miracle.") Even Benny's vocal timbre is versatile in conjunction with others, Hit-Boy tastefully dipping it in auto-tune on "Big Tymers" to diverge with Peezy's drawl. And of course, the album's closest thing to a posse cut, "Griselda Express", gives you that craved mix of Benny gruffness and Westside Gunn's thrilling shrill trills. It's a self-reflexive song that simultaneously possesses a universe that extends beyond the scope of Everybody Can't Go and makes Everybody Can't Go better. That the crew has given a new life to hip hop vinyl collecting and appeals to both conscious rap fans and contemporary hip hop heads renders their potential akin to Benny's favorite analogy--an unstoppable train. But as much as Benny looks forward and back on Everybody Can't Go, you get the sense that he and Griselda know it's an achievement worth basking in for some time.