The Plugs I Met

Let’s just state the obvious: BENNY THE BUTCHER can rap. He’s from Buffalo, not NYC, but The Plugs I Met boasts the kind of grimy, word-obsessed, kick-in-the-door New York gutter raps that old heads think went extinct in ’98. Well, not if Benny has anything to say about it. Over dusty Alchemist drums and menacing keys on “Dirty Harry,” the rapper crafts dense, writerly bars about all varieties of cinema-caliber gangster shit: “I wash the blood off the money that my daughters inherit/And kept the barrel so hot that it fog up the mirrors.” Name another current rapper who could invite Pusha T, Jadakiss, and Black Thought on their EP—and outpace all three.