Still, for a rapper as resolutely committed to the sounds and virtues of a previous age - one who’s historically been indifferent to things like putting choruses on his songs - that’s some kind of triumph. After slowly bubbling up from the underground for years upon years, Benny The Butcher has something resembling a pop hit, and he achieved that without changing a single fucking thing. “Johnny P’s Caddy” isn’t the first time a Griselda rapper has been on a Hot 100 hit. Last year, Benny The Butcher’s cousins and comrades Westside Gunn and Conway The Machine rapped on Kanye West’s “Keep My Spirit Alive.” Kanye’s Donda album did crazy first-week streaming numbers, and virtually all of its tracks made the Hot 100.

“Keep My Spirit Alive” made it to #59, which means it’s technically a bigger hit than “Johnny P’s Caddy.” Still, “Keep My Spirit Alive” doesn’t belong to Westside Gunn and Conway. Since Kanye didn’t even hand out official feature credits on Donda, Gunn and Conway haven’t technically ever had their names on the Hot 100. The song may have gotten a lot of its juice from that J. Cole verse, but it’s Benny’s song, and its small-stakes chart win is Benny’s small-stakes chart win. When Benny got there, he wasn’t window dressing on an A-list rapper’s album track. When he got there, he sounded like himself. In some ways, “Johnny P’s Caddy” is the ultimate Benny The Butcher song. Benny came up in the world by discussing his own drug-dealing past, building up his own myth in specific and concrete terms, over beats that were fully immersed in ’90s boom-bap sensibilities. When rap stars like Drake have praised Benny in the past, they’ve said that Benny brought back an old feeling. That’s what he’s still doing on “Johnny P’s Caddy.” The song’s Alchemist beat is mournful and contemplative and cinematic, all in-the-pocket snare rolls and hazy chipmunk-soul samples.

Ten crack commandments sample