Buck 65: Situation : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

The rapper raised in Nova Scotia as Richard Terfry almost tripped over his own ecumenism on 2005's Secret House Against the World -- lots of keyboards, with singing to match. On this "hooked on drums" return, his worst offense against the basics is a concept: 1957 -- among many other things the year the Situationist International began. Fortunately, the title is the last we hear of that. The concept is just a rubric to help him control his insatiable appetite for colloquial poetry. It permits him to write songs about Bettie Page and shutterbug porn, right, but also beatniks, hobos, gray-flannel conformists and cops in shades, while tossing off rhymes like "apocalypse rocket ships" and "Drown in doubt/Down and out." Buck 65's percussive funk and gruff flow serve language that deserves no less. Anybody who can write a song that shows the Beatles the door is worth a checkout, right? "Nowhere Man," meet "Mr. Nobody."