Buck 65

For the past ten years, Buck 65 has been a B-boy, confessional rapper and hip-hop bluesman while gathering acclaim in his native Canada and, now, here in the States. This Right Here Is Buck 65, however, introduces him to Americans as the “talkin’ honky,” bypassing other works to begin at his 1999 breakthrough Vertex and end with three new tracks. Only his 2001 tour de force Man Overboard has been released here, so even a compilation is most welcome. But his albums are usually complex collages of profiles that, like John Steinbeck’s stories, build into a greater truth about humanity. This Right Here Is Buck 65 simply selects the most accessible impressions — the bumpin’ bumpkin of “Wicked and Weird,” the anatomically obsessed “Centaur” — and scratches the surface of his art.