SubGenre: HIP HOP
Artist: BUCK 65
Buck 65 is old. He started out as a b-boy back in ’82 while living in Small Town, Nova Scotia, but today this no-nonsense white boy is the Jimmy Castor of hip hop.Handling production, lyrics, and Djing duties by himself, Buck may be the man to single-handedly rescue hip hop. Many regarded Buck as somewhat of a weirdo because his subject matter includes fashion design, freestyle BMX, baseball, and ichthyology. Maybe he’s a throwback, maybe he’s the future, but you can’t hear any death threats or hollow boasting coming from this honky. Forget about it. This is music that picks up where the rap performance in Revenge of the Nerds left off.
Buck 65: Batter Up
Monday April 29, 2002 @ 04:00 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff
by Ryan O’Connor
If it wasn’t for hip-hop, Buck 65 would probably be playing ball right now. And while breakbeats won out over batting cages, any time the rapping DJ discusses baseball, his love for the sport shines through. Just get him on the topic of Major League contraction.
“It’s a terrible invention, especially as it pertains to my beloved Expos. I know things come and go, and teams move around, but to actually size things down? I see the arguments for it, especially with their financial difficulties, but I don’t like to see baseball messed with. I mean, if someone tried to introduce aluminum bats I’d be out there picketing.”
Buck65 Live @ CMW 2002
You see, at the core of Buck 65 is a reverence for tradition. In order to understand this man, whose ever-growing legions of fans extend across the globe, one must understand this devotion. It’s the effort to maintain the original ways of hip-hop that inspires this artist.
“I’m never going to say what I’m doing is more hip-hop than anyone else,” the Mount Uniacke, Nova Scotia-bred Richard Terfry noted in a recent interview. “I’m just saying that I hold the founding fathers in the highest.”
As such, Buck has become an accomplished performer in the three elements of hip-hop: MCing, DJing and b-boying. “The DJ is the most important thing in the world to me,” he quips, adding that the art of hip-hop had its birth in the Bronx at record-spinning parties.
His albums are tributes to the genre’s pioneers. Buck’s lyrics hearken back to a day before rap was infiltrated by gat-clapping, materialism and misogyny, preferring instead to focus on his feelings, thoughts and dreams. Turntablism plays a prominent role on his CDs. Even his presentation is an ode to the genesis of hip-hop. “I put my albums together in the format of old-time mix tapes,” which feature the blending of songs into one continuous track.
Despite his devotion to the music, Buck occasionally finds himself under fire from those who disagree with his interpretation. “When [some] people hear what I’m doing they treat me like I’m a weirdo, but in my mind I’m keeping with tradition. I mean, you can’t say that using a keyboard is more hip-hop than using breaks.
“I think back to when I was a kid and the place it [hip-hop] had in my life. The whole idea of the artform and culture has been like a religion. In my life its had so much to do with me. What I see happening doesn’t make sense in my head with what I perceive to be hip-hop, but everyone, even the founding fathers, seem to be hunky-dory with it. Hip-hop somewhere along the line got kidnapped, but like Christina Ricci in Buffalo 66, it was into it.”