BUCK 65

Personnel: Buck 65 (vocals, turntables); Charles Austin (various instruments, guitar); Dale Murray (pedal steel guitar); Graeme Campbell (keyboards, programming, sequencer); Andrew Glencross (keyboards); Michael Catano (drums).

With an aesthetic that veers between hardcore rap, outlaw country, atmospheric film music, and lo-fi indie experimentalism, it seems safe to say that no one makes music quite like Buck 65. After making a name for himself as a hip-hop performer and impresario in Halifax, Nova Scotia in the 1990s (a unique enough feat in itself), Buck 65, also known as Richard Terfry, began releasing albums late in the decade to critical acclaim. THIS RIGHT HERE IS BUCK 65 is a compilation album, the artist's first on the V2 label, that culls highlights from his earlier independent releases.

Ghostly guitars and crying pedal steel are not typical instruments heard among the programmed beats of hip-hop, but there is nothing typical about Buck 65. The music is as unique as his rapping style, which consists of narratives about hardscrabble, low-income life conveyed in a slow, gravel-voiced drawl. Whether spinning tragic community tales ("Cries a Girl," about a teenager who becomes the victim of incest), singing acoustic laments about being a mythological creature ("Centaur"), or pumping party anthems of quirky self-declaration ("Wicked and Weird"), Buck 65 has to be heard to be believed.

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