Review: "Burden of Proof" Album by Benny the Butcher
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Buffalo rapper Benny the Butcher is one of the most promising hip hop players in the game right now, and the album “Burden of Proof,” (his first work since 2019) cements that. “Burden of Proof” is the leading track with crisp clear production and a bulletproof horn foundation. His rhymes are slick-tongued and filled with entrepreneurial hustle with a fire that reminds us of a young Jay Z.
It walks the line between distinguished man presented to the public, and the gangster underneath that mask who’s always in the shadows. Unlike some artists who exist purely for hype, ego and lifestyle, Benny carefully approaches himself not only as a rapper, a multi-faceted brand. He tells us about it in the first lines: “Yo, last year was 'bout brandin', this one about expandin'/Caught a flight to Cali, made twenty 'fore I landed/This rap shit easy, tell the truth, I can't stand it.”
Beyond this vicious intro, the fluttering back beat in “Sly Green” stands out as the next essential track. His flow stands up hard against it, as he reps Griselda with pride, zooming back with nostalgia to the 90’s, or the “shoebox era” as he calls it, and moving on to compare other rappers in the game as addicts that buy his poison: “Y'all comparin' me to niggas? (Huh) That's abusive to my name/I sold the dope to 'em, then I watch 'em shoot it in they veins.”
While we weren't too impressed with Rick Ross’s feature, “One Way Flight” is a gloriously intertwined collab between the Butcher and Freddie Gibs. It’s a tale of perseverance “I survived all them death threats and three felony convictions” next to surprisingly poignant lines that read like a haiku, “What's a stage with no mic and no voice of a poet?/What’s more important, the flower or the soil that grow it?”
These two sides of Benny the Butcher are present in every track on the album, speaking to his complexity as an artist, and a man. It sometimes feels impossible to pin him under any label, and we love that. Gibbs’ chorus is a message to a brokenhearted bae who might not be able to handle the side effects of fame, but can’t deny the shiny gleam of materialistic things: “Trips with that work, my baby made it back/I fuck with them hoes, I know she hated that/You gon' cry in that Toyota or this Maybach?"
“New Streets” is paired with the perfect sample (something Benny the Butcher always has on deck) and chronicles a chat with his girl over taking his gun with him on the road: ”Told baby girl I'd be back, she said be careful/I told baby girl I'd be strapped, that made her worry more”.
“Thank God I Made It” featuring Queen Naija is a love letter to single mothers “who had to teach their teenage boys to use rubbers” and disappointed but profound comments towards absent dads “I can't respect the man who don't raise his son/Then you blame the white man on what they become.”
Benny’s words are as poetic as they are raw. There are light moments, and there are dark, with genuine emotion through them all. The cohesion in this album is undeniable, and while there’s not too many minimalist, slowed down tracks, we almost prefer to see this artist flex his breath control and impressively delivered lyricism. In an album studded with celebrity features, Benny the Butcher is still the biggest star.