The hard-bitten Buffalo East Side rapper Benny The Butcher has just come out with a characteristically raw new single, “Duffel Bag Hottie’s Revenge,” calling in fellow rapper Boldy James for what ends up being less a song than a statement. The gritty banger serves as the first single for Benny’s new seven-song project, Excelsior, and if this is the warm-up shot, you know he’s gonna only go harder from here.
Courtesy of the soul surgeon Nunchuk, the horns-drenched track is marked by hunger. The beat sounds like it was unearthed from a ‘70s crime drama vault and dipped in cold steel and just right for the two rappers, who have made careers of telling morbid street stories with steely-eyed delivery. Benny comes in razor-sharp, every bar clipped and methodical, as though he’s righting an old wrong. Then Boldy drifts into his low-key menace, dispensing lines like smoke signals from a Detroit alleyway.
There’s a kind of magic when two underground legends with this much mileage get together. It’s not flashy. It’s not chasing algorithms. It’s raw craftsmanship lyricism grounded in real experience, honed through years of playing the rap game by their own rules. They don’t have anything to prove, which is why their confidence is so attractive.
Sure, Excelsior might be promoted casually as “a project,” but after 2024’s Everybody Can’t Go, it’s obvious Benny’s not resting on the past. The new tape is stacked with assists from Styles P, Skyler Blatt, P.R.E.M.O., Sule, and Fuego Base. And on the boards? That’s not something that can be said without qualification about “Tana Talk 3”; the same can be said of your production team on “Pretape” heavyweights like Harry Fraud and Daringer, who add real texture and tension to every track.
The visual for “Duffel Bag Hottie’s Revenge” is no different. It was shot on a Brooklyn subway platform, a gritty homage to New York’s underground, not just trains but also the culture that gave rise to rappers like Benny and Boldy. Neither one is from BK, but the aesthetic is a perfect fit: dark, real, unencumbered by trend.
Something is refreshing about musicians who don’t kowtow to the shinier side of the industry. Benny and Boldy weren’t after radio singles or viral dances. They’re making music for people who still play Mobb Deep and rewind verses to hear the double entendres, for listeners who live in the headphones, not the headlines.
So if “Duffel Bag Hottie’s Revenge” is any indicator, Excelsior is more than just a pit stop but a power move in Benny The Butcher’s long game. And with Boldy James riding shotgun? All I’m going to say is that it’s going to be a hell of a ride.
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