appers can be pigeon-holed pretty easily. This isn’t a bad thing, but true nonetheless. There are political rappers, spiritual rappers, personal rappers, party rappers and belligerent rappers. Most artists straddle several categories, but you can usually peg them down without offending anyone (Public Enemy’s political, Mos Def’s spiritual, Jurassic 5’s party, etc.). Buck 65 resides in the personal realm, but he does so in such a cryptic, fractured way that his music always takes on the pretence of confusion more than it does confession. He feels a basic need to share his experiences with others, but refuses to be known. No song titles, no photos; his samples are coated in watery, digital fuzz as if they were downloaded in a bathtub; he creates a sad, experimental mutation of hip-hop that, despite its warmth and humanity, still has the potential to piss-off; and just as they become familiar, his songs either change form or fade out. On Man Overboard, Buck 65’s 2001 Anticon masterpiece, these changes came frequently and abruptly. On Square, his Warner Brothers debut, his ideas have expanded into songs that strengthen the walls he’s forever building around himself.


Excised from past efforts is Buck’s diversity-for-diversity’s sake -- which resulted in both cool ideas and go-nowhere songs -- and his attempts to rap aggressively -- his voice is custom made for dreamy sing-speak and muttered riddles. Square is built solely out of his strengths: hazy introspection, sparse snare-and-kick beats and simple, dismal instrumental refrains. Throughout the four separate sections of the album -- “Square 1”, “Square 2” and so on -- Buck smoothly alternates between tender bewilderment (his and his listeners’) and brief, sample-and-scratch funk interludes. Square’s beats are cheap, dusty and skeletal; but rambling overtop is a wholly unique blend of charm, wisdom and soul.


Song titles would make it easy to pinpoint the album’s highlights. If it had a name, the mournful organ riff and intelligent rhymes that float in at the outset of the album could be given their due, as could the incredible head-nod misery and tumbling acoustic guitar harmonics that close out “Square 1”. Also referenced would be the thoughtful, piano-supported meditation on teen lust contained in “Square 2” and how the piano eventually wanders into leftfield with a minimalist solo. A story of a friend manipulated by a money-hungry female (who is not once referred to as a bitch), a druggy murder mystery gallop and a few minutes of near-Dalek harshness could also be name-checked, but as it stands you’ll have to seek them out for yourself. Conversely, if the lame raps about science and food in “Square 4” were also given names, you could be suitably warned.


Imperfect, messy and odd, Square is the sound of an already accomplished artist further defining himself. Thing is, he’ll never tell us who he’s become. Through these smudged-together sketches of where he’s at now, Buck 65 sheds light only on his increased prowess behind the decks and on the mic. All evidence points to a sad, lonely genius with a history of fractured relationships and diaries overflowing with pent-up anger, but just as the concrete of these assumptions begins to dry, a sampled voice in “Square 3” reminds us -- taunts us -- “you don’t know me”.