I Can't Call It: The Plugs I Met - Benny the Butcher

Anybody who knows ANYTHING about me knows that I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE Griselda! I haven't rocked with a crew THIS much since the BCC back in the early 90's. And I'm not just talking music wise either. I'm at every Griselda show that's within a 100 mile radius of me and if you know me then you KNOW I don't rock anything except Polo...and GXFR gear. And not for nuthin, but last year Benny scooped up the 2018's dopest album of the year chip from me with his 5 mic classic "Tana Talk 3" so it would be an understatement to say I was hype as hell when word got to ear that Benny was actually making an album about the plugs he met. And then when I heard it was dropping this summer?!?!?! Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaan listen. But I won't hold you that I was salty as hell when I peeped the tracklisting & saw it was only gonna have 6 songs on it with a rack of features too. But at the end of the day we're still talking about one of my fave MC's walking the planet earth so if anybody can turn a 6 song EP featuring everybody from Buffalo and Philly to Virginia and the fifth corridor into another 5 mic classic, it's mos def the Butcher!

"The Plugs I Met" sets off with the DJ Slay BANGER "Crowns For Kings" and has Benny & Philly's finest Black Thought going back & forth with "more bars then the niggaz who got hit with the Reagan laws." The Daringer produced "Sunday School" featuring 38 Spesh & Jadakiss has all three putting in more bar work, "just let me know come check with me when y'all want y'all shot, it's ten shooters in my hood for every one y'all got/I had to dumb it down for niggas you gotta do that, it's like bringin' down the prices you gotta move that/I was in the Feds with braids under the durag, I'ma volunteer to do ya if it come to that." And 38 Spesh's verse?!?!?!? "These niggas borrowin' the guns they use, not me I got my own stick like I'm 'bout to come play pool/ride in the car with bricks that's one brave move, I never did it, that's why my bitch one paid mule/niggas say they want gunplay cool, but they don't really wan' go there, it's like Sunday school/them niggas dead on arrival don't question the title, no chance for survival they ain't checkin' your vitals/a fast car with a gun tryna catch up to rivals, I got a Lamb' and a stick like I'm fresh out the Bible." Did this mofo just say he's got a lamb & a stick like he's fresh out the Bible?!?!?!?!?

The Beat Butcha produced "Dirty Harry" featuring RJ Payne & The Machine is just more bars at work "I wash the blood off the money that my daughters inherit and kept the barrel so hot that it fog up the mirrors/these niggas rap so next time we into some shit, check it I ain't gon' clip you, I'm gettin' your bitch pregnant/up early serve you 28 grams with breakfast and I could charge tuition to give you my wrist method/in the trap five straight hours,blendin' up fine gray powder, the fumes knock you out like Deontay Wilder"while the Alchemist produced "Took  The Money To The Plug's House" has Benny going in on the dolo side of things, "this for all my whole brick buyers and my quarter hustlers and all the road trip drivers and the corner huggers/he made his first ten bands let's applaud the brother, if you do that ten times, now you onto something/the shit I don't say no more, I damn near don't pray no more,only to an eighth of raw, a fork, and the mayo jar/numbers, you inflated yours, you got a created buzz, my flow got the fans rethinkin' who the greatest was." "18 Wheeler" featuring the only drug dealer at fashion week Pusha T & has Benny doing Benny, "we don't do no price talk 'cause I already know they numbers, plus me and your old connect was tighter than them Dolce runners/first time I ever cooked a deuce I got a four-way from it, stabbed it in the pot so many times they think OJ done it/if me and Push would've linked back when I was a dealer, that's an 18-wheeler to my town from Virginia " and "The Plug I Met" ends with "5 To 50" and kinda threw me a curve ball cause it has Benny spittin' on with a 2019 trap flow but once you catch the flow you're good money, "what you know about takin' bags cross state on a half a tank of gas, the first around ain't a workaround/you gotta hit it twice just to make it last, take a quarter you make a quarter/put that together, that'll make a half, when the coke come pressed, it's...matter fact, I ain't tellin' niggas shit." But to me the dopest thing about "5 to 50" is Benny's wifey India breaking down life in the game and how she ends it with "but everything is different now, everything is legal. Benny doin' what he love to do I don't gotta worry 'bout no more police kickin' in our doors. Our life is good."

Back in the day when I started dating back middle school in '87 the trend was if you asked a shorty out, she'd bring her homegirl with her and you'd have to bring one of your peoples and I hated that ish! I always felt like "shorty I'm trying to chill with YOU! Not you and your homegirl AND my man! Now, ya'll might be asking why am I telling that story? Well, because it reminds me of how a lot of hip hop gets made nowadays. 9 times outta 10 if I rock with you as a MC, I rock with YOU. Not your crew, not your new artist, not your mans and 'em...just you. And that's my beef with "The Plugs I Met" I just wanna hear Benny. And that's absolutely no knock to any of the guest MC's cause EVERYONE brings their A game but is it wrong for me to just wanna hear Benny since this is HIS album? I mean, it's bad enough I was expecting "The Plugs..."to be an 10-12 songs & I only get 6 but now out of those 6 songs I only get 2 with Benny holding it down dolo? Word?!?!?! Welp prayerfully with Benny's next go 'round we'll not only get the butcher coming but we'll get the butcher coming dolo.

4.5 outta 5 mics