Benny The Butcher who plays The Ritz in Ybor City, Florida on April 17, 2024. Credit: Photo via getbenny/Facebook

Few rappers can pull off the same kind of “burn-this-motherfucking-city-down” energy in songs like Freeway’s “What We Do,” but Jeremie Pennick is one of them.

The 39-year-old Buffalo rapper better known as Benny The Butcher does it over and over again on his 2023 album Everybody Can’t Go (especially on Pancho Barraza-sampling “Bron”), which cements his stature as a giant of modern-day East Coast hip-hop.

Pennick, an alum of the rap collective Griselda (with connections to underground favorite Westside Gunn), may have just started releasing music on major labels, but we’ll be seeing him playing bigger and bigger rooms for years to come.

Tickets to see Benny The Butcher and Boldy James play The Ritz in Ybor City on Wednesday, April 17 are still available and start at $27.