Elz Bentley’s latest release “Buddha” comes with a matching music video further reinforcing the song’s potential impact. It’s a hallmark of Bentley’s career, thus far, that he pairs each new release with complementary visual material bursting with the same inspiration and skill heard in the song. It wraps its arms around the same urban imagery defining Bentley’s songwriting with this track, it’s rife with the sounds and life of a metropolitan weekend night, but never feels like it’s putting on airs. Bentley comes across as a performer who says take him as he is or not at all. There are no fronts here, no masks, and the clip moves with the same loose-limbed energy making the music move.
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His vocal is full of experiences from a life lived. Bentley balances intimacy with the listeners with measured distance, no one gets too close to this performer without passing certain tests, but his unvarnished honesty hits home with every line. He mixes things up with his method of delivery and infuses enough of a dramatic quality into his performance that keeps listeners waiting for the next line. Bentley pays sharp attention to the musical backing; you can hear it in the way he links his voice with the beat in some passages and counters it in others. It’s a first-rate example of what talented hip-hop vocalists can do with topflight material. It’s assertive without ever going overboard and leaves a lasting impression on listeners.
The words help a lot in that area. It’s a cascade of verbal fireworks, descriptive storytelling, and familiar swagger. The swagger element is key because, once again, Bentley wisely never overplays his hand. He comes off as hardened by life but never recklessly cocky. There’s likewise an ample amount of style running through these lyrics that never strikes listeners as fake or affected. Bentley isn’t breaking any new ground here, really, but proves masterful at pouring new wine into old bottles.
The keyboards, digital percussion, and insistent bass pulse shaping the arrangement plays off good with Bentley’s voice. The robust production framing this track gives the performance heft it might otherwise lack and a strong mix keeps everything balanced and working towards a common end. There is a clear direction in the way Bentley and his team construct this recording and it sounds like they likely knew what they wanted from the beginning. “Buddha” has that kind of assurance.
Lexington will not contain Elz Bentley for long. On the backs of EP releases such as Bentley and “Buddha”, Bentley’s artistic future is destined for national and global exposure. He has the necessary discipline, vision, and skill to make a prolonged and lasting impression on the hip-hop world, paying respect to the past while pushing the genre into a brave new future. There’s physicality and nuance alike making this song stand out from most modern music in this vein and Bentley’s future can scarcely look any brighter. It has one of the best hip-hop grooves in recent memory and ranks as one of the best efforts in this genre during 2020.
Nicole Killian, posted by Loretta Kim