On The Come Up: Bukkweat Bill

HotNewHipHop's On The Come Up series profiles rising stars in the rap game that show strong promise and the will to succeed. Most of the time, they're new to the site but deserve some shine. We will profile artists and producers ranging from those in the deep underground to artists just about to bubble up into the mainstream that you may have missed. You'll be able to check out some of their best work, and we'll break down what makes them great by category. Throughout the article, you'll find links to hear more from the artist or producer, and you can leave suggestions in the comments letting us know who we should profile in the future.

For this week's edition, we head to Florida (2 weeks in a row!) to chop it up with Bukkweat Bill, literally one of the craziest dudes in the game. But don't get it twisted, homie has bangers for days, and he's about to take hip hop by storm.

Before we get to it though, everybody knows we stay giving you that exclusive shit, right? Nobody else is allowed to remix "Hot Nigga" after this because Bukkweat Bill bodied it, and HotNewHipHop has the exclusive video to prove it. You're welcome. 

Nice To Meet You

New Smyrna Beach, Florida is known as a surfer community, only about 23,000 people calling it home. Before its hip hop scene started to break out, New Smyrna's claim to fame was a surfer-perfected strain of weed called Triangle Kush that was so strong it has been featured in publications like High Times Magazine. Well, there's a new show in town now, and he goes by Bukkweat Bill, and if you have any of that Triangle Kush, let him know. He says it's so rare, he hasn't had any since high school.

Bukk's been on his grind, dropping new songs and insane videos at a ridiculous rate since his 8886 EP dropped a little over a year ago. If you don't have it, fix that right now. 

Now that your iTunes library's been baptised by Bukkweat, we can continue. As you'll find out very quickly, Bukk's not your typical trap artist. Whereas most trap guys get swallowed up by the heavy beats, relying on autotune and catchy hooks to save their weak lyrical content, Bill brings serious bars and punchlines without it sounding too forced and maintaining the overall trap feel. That's why he stands out so much, truthfully, building his fanbase by putting out consistently strong material that is a must-listen every time, never cheapening his work with filler and throwaway lines. 

One thing you won't get out of his music, at least up until now, is too much of his personal story. While painting an audio picture of his surroundings and the activities he partakes in, you get very little of his personal life in his lyrics. When most artists are pouring out their life stories into their verses, Bukk's managed to keep our attention while telling us nothing, a true hip hop man of mystery. Duke London recently had the chance to chat with Bill about this, among other things, and he told us, "I'm not a big topic rapper, I don't really tell stories. I don't really want to make a whole song about my life, I'll give you a little bit in each song and let you connect the dots later on. You know, things about my probation and my baby momma, that's personal. Some niggas will make a whole song about that, but I'll just throw a line or two out there. This next mixtape though, I got real personal. A lot of shit happened to me, so... I'm not on probation anymore for the record though!"

Style & Influence

As far as comparisons, there aren't too many people Bukkweat sounds like, but there is one artist who's influence is easy to hear and see, and he embraces it fully. When asked about how he feels being compared so often to Tunechi when people first hear his music he told us, "I think it's valid, and it kinda makes me happy. I look up to Weezy, niggas don't even know. I'm not one of these Wayne-heads that came around after Tha Carter 2, feel me? When Tha Block is Hot came out, I was Wayne that year for Halloween. I got my hair braided, wore the bandanas and all. So when people tell me that I'm like "word" because that's where I got my style from, with my punchline-y flow. You can hear it especially on "666Forever", just straight bars." Another song where you can hear a strong resemblance is "D4MN (Down 4 My Niggas)".

Bukk may attribute his style to Weezy, but he isn't just another Tunechi clone. His demeanor and content is much darker at times, and his flow can get far more aggressive. Imagine if Lil Wayne's flow and style, Freddie Gibbs's all killer no filler demeanor, Curren$y's inflection and delivery, and Fabolous' punchlines were all Power Rangers and formed a Megazord together. That's Bukkweat Bill. 

Production & Collaboration

Just as Bukkweat keeps to himself lyrically, it's a lot of the same on the collaboration front. He's part of a growing group of artists that are extremely skilled on the production side of things, so he ends up making the vast majority of his own beats, including all but one on the 8886 EP. He's truly a dual threat, as his production is just as dark as his lyrics, making for a chilling experience listening to his music. It's rare to hear such a cohesive, perfect match of lyrical content and production. You can hear what we mean on "Lizzy Borden" below. 

Making beats was a natural progression for Yung William, as he told us about his skills with the instruments growing up, "I was in a youth drumline, and by the time I was in middle school, I was the drum captain. I was the boss on the snar drums, feel me? I played guitar and shit, all kinds of instruments when I was a kid. When I hit 8th grade, I got some turntables to mess around with, but my needles broke. So an older DJ homie of mine gave me his Fruity Loops disc to use, and told me to have fun with that. That ended up being my video game, I was on that bitch every day after school."

We asked what comes first in the process for him, making the beat and writing to it, or coming up with lyrical concepts and building beats around them, to which he quickly said, "Both, really. Back then, it would really be the beat first, because I was on my producer shit. But now, on my next project Lockdown @ 11, I linked with a lot of Twitter producers. I don't write anymore. I just hit the studio, go through my e-mail, pick a beat, and go off. I don't really have a plan."

Besides the members of Bukkweat's Relax Rekords, who we'll cover in the next section, one frequent collaborator is fellow New Smyrna Beach native and longtime friend Jitta on the Track. Jitta thankfully put us on to Bukkweat a while back, and the two have had some killers tracks together. Jitta was recently signed to Chris Webby's Homegrown Music and we can only hope there's a fresh Bukkweat collabo on his upcoming Bipolar project, as these two always come correct.

"Relax Or Get Murked" *

Bukkweat heads up Relax Rekords, one of the most promising indie rap collectives in the country right now. You may have heard of his label cohorts J $tash (we actually saw him in the video for "Guerillas" yesterday) or Lil Kent, but he tells us about some of the other members coming up too. "Yeah, we got Kenny Turnup, Teddy Blow, Beezy, De$. Umm, there's a lot of people. That's just the people I know with projects coming up, too." 

When we asked how he linked up with J $tash and Lil Kent, he told us, "J $tash was really through networking, he had the clothing line, Urban Relaxation, and I was really the first guy they sponsored. We finally met in real life, and just got close. That shit just happened naturally. As far as Kent? We've been homies since I was like 6 or 7. We pretty much grew up together."

Bukkweat also said there's a Relax Rekords mixtape coming out towards the end of August, leading up to September 9th, when his Lockdown @ 11 drops. According to Bukk, the compilation project "will be 3 or 4 unheard songs from a few of us, then some posse cuts." 

* J. $tash literally got "Relax Or Get Murked" trademarked. God Bless America.

I Legally OWN The Phrase " Relax Or Get Murked " pic.twitter.com/s5j9XKOAWJ

Up Next

Bukk told us he wants to finish his mixtape, Lockdown @ 11, before he works on anything else, but after that he'd like to keep stacking up lots of airline miles. "I've been traveling to places like New York and Ohio to record. I did some shows out in NY too, some warehouse shows, nothing crazy. But the response was great, people were definitely fucking with me."

Lil Internet and Lil Government started handling management duties for Bukkweat after they linked up through Diplo's Mad Decent. Bukk told us they have a gameplan for what comes next in his journey, and we hope he's right, because the kids need way more Bukkweat in their life.

Make sure you get both the Relax Rekords compilation mixtape that comes out later this month and Bukkweat's next project, dropping September 9th. Bukk left us with, "Be on the lookout for a follow up EP towards the end of the year, late Winter. It'll robably have like 5 songs on there." The summer's ours, the winter too. Relax.