Boldy James and Benny The Butcher Play With Art and Reality On ‘Rabies’

Two of Griselda’s best connected on “Rabies,” a track from Boldy James and Harry Fraud’s aptly named new album The Bricktionary. Both artists are recognized as skilled scribes of R-rated drug epics through song, and their latest collaboration doesn’t disappoint. Harry Fraud laced the two with a soaring guitar-based loop, which they both took off on. 

Boldy starts off the track proclaiming, “Holy Christ and Jesus, Latter Day Saints, I caught a half a brickie,” a line that probably won’t be recited at any Catholic Church holiday festivities. He then threatens a “Thirty-popper on your third eye, fuck with my first lady,” while delving into a narrative of drug escapades with imagery as riveting as his technical precision. Boldy’s forte is methodically fusing multis and end rhymes to construct his capers. And it’s not just the potency of his pen but its prolificness. Since a seven-year career gap from 2013 to 2020, he’s dropped 14 albums, 2 EPs, and one mixtape. Even a serious car accident he suffered in January 2023 couldn’t stop his run. 

The song’s eponymous line is “sittin’ on a chirp of dog shit, look like a bird with rabies,” which could evoke a strong face scrunch for many, but an eyebrow raise for ornithologists — birds aren’t mammals and therefore can’t get rabies. The line is a first-ballot entry into rap’s inaccurate Hall of Fame next to Jay-Z’s “38 revolve like the sun round the earth.” But we’ll allow it; rap is a fantasy world where everything artists ask us to imagine can exist in our heads. 

Benny follows up with palpable intensity from his first bar, offering “good dope that’s best served raw like Japanese cuisine” in a braggadocious verse that chronicles his come-up and lavish lifestyle. His verse concludes with, “I’m in my interviews, tellin’ war stories on No Jumper,” for better or worse, name-checking the controversial platform as a home for airing out your business. Again, his bar provokes us to think about the line between art and reality. No Jumper interviews are notorious for how Adam22 and his co-hosts goad their guests to self-incriminate. So when it comes to the best place for rappers to dish off sordid tales, we prefer fantastical link-ups like “Rabies” to Adam’s studio.