A Powerful Return to True Hip-Hop

Buck 65 – Keep Moving (Album Review)

by ~dhh for dohiphop.com

There are albums… and then there are statements. Artifacts. Time-warping transmissions built from turntable dust and hard-earned wisdom. Buck 65’s latest album Keep Moving isn’t just a return to form — it’s a sonic manifesto. One that documents a life steeped in vinyl culture, relentless craft, heartbreak, obsession, and the sacred act of digging deeper — not just into crates, but into self.

Released on April 28th, 2025, this sprawling 31-track journey is both chaotic and controlled, raw and refined, nostalgic and future-forward. Buck, now 53 and somehow sharper than ever, doesn’t just rap — he narrates, scratches, sculpts. His rhymes don’t just sit on beats, they live inside them. These aren’t verses. They’re reflections. Sharp, strange, brilliant reflections of the kind only Buck could conjure.

Clocking in at just under an hour, the pacing is beautifully manic — many tracks under two minutes, none overstay their welcome. It’s a format that mirrors life in motion, inspired heavily by Buck’s own creative rituals and setbacks. Broken bikes. Leaking ceilings. Sudden house moves. Subway rides packed with beat ideas. It’s all in there. Keep Moving is more than a title. It’s survival mode. It’s the mission statement.

And yet, there’s joy in the grind. The album dances between moods and tempos, flowing with the kind of loose precision that only comes from decades of doing this thing from the ground up. Entire sections feel like collage — fragments of radio static, jazz, funk, obscure loops, and those perfectly imperfect breaks that seem to follow Buck around like ghosts from mixtapes past.

Standouts for me?

• “Linoleum” – An ode to Phase N’ Rhythm that balances respect and innovation. It’s deceptively complex. The percussion clicks and scratches, like thoughts trying to break free. Lyrically sharp and beautifully layered.
• “Janky Teeth” – Pure chaos bottled into 1:53 of audio madness. Misfit elegance. It reminds me why I fell in love with hip-hop that dares to be ugly, awkward, and brilliant all at once.
• “I’ve Got You Covered” – Slows things down without losing heat. A rare moment of vulnerability — this one feels like a warm blanket in a cold, glitchy world. Buck shows heart here, and it lands.
• “Magic Bullet” – The beat hits like a shotgun blast of layered samples. Buck weaves through it with that classic sideways smirk in his tone. It’s infectious. It’s undeniable.

What’s remarkable is the backstory — shared generously through Buck’s Substack album diary. He breaks down the entire process — from crate-digging after the Live Convention to categorising beats, layering micro-details, and recording vocals in a mad 12-hour session. The dude even blew out his back moving records and built IKEA shelves between verses. It’s the kind of story that is hip-hop. No PR team. No gloss. Just vinyl, sweat, and a helluva lot of creative endurance.

The mixing is handled by long-time collaborator Sixtoo at The Treatment Center, adding another level of polish to Buck’s DIY grit. It’s a beautiful sonic paradox — homegrown and hi-fi. Raw and ready. This thing was made for double vinyl, and it sounds like it.

Lyrically? Buck is still one of the most underrated writers in hip-hop. His wit is surgical. His storytelling is abstract, poetic, and perfectly deranged. Tracks like “Boom Mic,” “Burners,” and “The Break Room” show his ability to shape chaos into cadence. There’s also a maturity here. A sense that Buck knows exactly where he’s been and exactly where he refuses to go.

For fans of:

Sage Francis, Deep Puddle Dynamics, Atmosphere, Themselves, Non-Prophets, Kool Keith

Listen & support:

A Powerful Return to True Hip-Hop

“This is life, not a tourist attraction.” That line lingers. It echoes across the dust and static of this record like a mantra. Because Buck 65 doesn’t just make music—he builds monuments to what hip-hop can be. Keep Moving is more than a title. It’s an ethos. A war cry. A whisper. A reminder that the real heads never stop building. They just… keep moving.

Don’t sleep.