BENNY THE BUTCHER

Benny the Butcher channels his intense street-life stories through Buffalo’s Griselda collective and his own Black Soprano Family imprint. Along with frequent partners Westside Gunn and Conway the Machine, he draws primary influence from the raw, mid-’90s New York hardcore sound of acts such as Wu-Tang Clan and Mobb Deep. Although he reached full stride later than most in his field, the rapper born Jeremie Pennick achieved his breakthrough in his thirties via Tana Talk 3 (2018), The Plugs I Met (2019), and the widely praised Burden of Proof (2020), then followed those projects with The Plugs I Met 2 (2021). A joint effort with J. Cole paved the way for Tana Talk 4 in 2022, after which Everybody Can't Go—his debut for Def Jam—landed in 2024 and was trailed by the single “Summer of ’24.”

Pennick recognized his desire to work in music by age ten. Under the name B.E.N.N.Y. he issued late-2000s material that included the albums The Mayor’s Back and Chains Bond. Around the same period he formed a lasting creative bond with Westside Gunn and Conway, first as members of the Forerunners alongside his brother Machine Gun Black. That alliance deepened in the mid-2010s when Benny helped shape Westside’s Griselda Records, contributing projects such as 2016’s My First Brick and the 2017 Green Lantern joint Butcher on Steroids while also appearing regularly on other label releases.

Tana Talk 3, a Griselda/Black Soprano Family release crafted by Alchemist and Daringer, earned Benny fresh recognition and fueled further momentum throughout 2019. That year he joined Westside and Conway on DJ Premier’s “Headlines,” issued the Billboard-charting The Plugs I Met—which included verses from Black Thought, Jadakiss, and Pusha T—and entered a management agreement with Roc Nation. Teaming with producer Hit Boy, he delivered 2020’s Burden of Proof, a set boasting appearances by Lil Wayne, Big Sean, Rick Ross, Freddie Gibbs, and additional guests. The next year he reunited with Harry Fraud for the follow-up EP The Plugs I Met 2, while also unveiling the 38 Spesh collaboration Trust the Sopranos and the solo project Pyrex Picasso.

Issued in 2022 ahead of Tana Talk 4, the single “Johnny P’s Caddy” paired Benny with J. Cole. He subsequently guested on tracks by Armani Caesar and Maxo Kream and contributed to the Black Soprano Family album Long Live DJ Shay. Two further 2023 recordings—“Big Dog” with Lil Wayne and “One Foot In” with Stove God Cooks—appeared on Everybody Can't Go, Benny’s long-promised Def Jam debut, which was succeeded by the Black Soprano Family single “Summer of ’24.”