Benny the Butcher

Why he matters

Jeremie Pennick grew up on Montana Avenue in Buffalo, and the block gave his Tana Talk series its name. He started recording with local producer DJ Shay and put out the first Tana Talk mixtape in 2004, printing 5,000 copies and handing them out free. For years after that he was a Buffalo mixtape rapper working over other people’s beats, the way the 2000s mixtape circuit ran.

That changed when his cousin Westside Gunn and Conway the Machine got Griselda going. Benny moved to in-house production built around Daringer’s sound, showed up all over the label’s releases, and started the Black Soprano Family collective for other Buffalo rappers. The DJ Green Lantern tape Butcher on Steroids (2017) got critics’ attention. Tana Talk 3 (2018), produced only by the Alchemist and Daringer, made the case: detailed, unhurried street storytelling over cold loops.

From there the climb was steady. The Plugs I Met (2019) put him beside Black Thought, Jadakiss and Pusha T of Clipse. He signed a management deal with Roc Nation that year. Burden of Proof (2020), produced entirely by Hit-Boy, opened his sound up without diluting it, and a Def Jam deal followed in 2021. Tana Talk 4 came in 2022 and Everybody Can’t Go, split between the Alchemist and Hit-Boy, in 2024.

What a working rapper can take from it

One producer, one world. Benny’s strongest albums each come from one or two beatmakers, and they play like a single piece. If your project is twelve beats from twelve producers, it may sound like a playlist. Find one producer whose sound fits your writing and build a whole project together; settle the split on paper before the first session with the split sheet tool.

Give it away until people ask for it. He printed 5,000 copies of his first tape and handed them out. Today that’s a free tape or a run of loosies, but the principle holds: early on, reach matters more than revenue.

The long road counts. His debut album came out fourteen years after his first mixtape. The years of features, collectives and side tapes built the skill and the network that made Tana Talk 3 land. Stay in the room, keep writing, and keep your verses sharp for when the right beat shows up. The verse-writing guide is a good place to tighten them.