Entertainment, Music - Army Times

Rapper Young Buck focusing on charity work, new image

Nashville, Tenn., rapper Young Buck introduced himself worldwide with a tough-thug glower, brandishing two relentlessly street-tough (and massively successful) albums: superstar rap crew G-Unit’s 2003 debut “Beg for Mercy” and his own debut solo disc, 2004’s “Straight Outta Ca$hville.”

More recently, though, Nashville’s most visible rap export has been pushing a different expression, focusing publicly on charity work, and cultivating a more positive — and, he says, more accurate — public image.

With all the effort Young Buck’s been putting toward brightening up his image at home, why title a new album something as (at least rhyming-ly) confrontational as “Buck the World?”

“You gotta know what the title Buck the World means,” the 26-year-old rapper says. “It’s got a lot of different meanings. Some people think of it in a bad way, I’m thinkin’ ‘Buck the world’ — I’m all over the world.”

He’s been getting around, certainly, both literally and figuratively.

This summer, Young Buck is cutting a decent-sized swath across the country on tour through August.

In an era when rap and hip-hop stars are increasingly shying away from the live stage, the rapper’s commitment to it is a relative rarity. That coupled with his album’s solid early showing (“Buck the World” moved 347,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, since its March release) makes him a big live summer draw for rap fans.

Getting on stage is one of his favorite parts of the process, the rapper says, so it’s an easy commitment.

“You can make all the hot records you want, but I think fans really enjoy it when they can see that person,” Young Buck says. “I try to keep myself as open as possible. I’m a fan first and I came in the game watching the artists that I’m working with.”

He’s working with quite a few artists on “Buck the World” — some that you’ll expect, like well-known rap names Young Jeezy and Trick Daddy, and some that show him visiting other corners of the music world, like singer Chester Bennington of rock act Linkin Park.

Sonically and lyrically, Young Buck stretches out some on “Buck the World.” He follows his trademark hard-and-tough path on growling tracks like “Buss Yo’ Head,” but threads gospel-choir coos into “Get Buck” and a slow-jam thump into “U Ain’t Goin Nowhere.” In “Slow Ya Roll,” he waxes introspective and cautionary.

From the rapper’s perspective, the increasing breadth boils down to his reaching a point where he can show a more rounded picture of himself, musically and otherwise.

“At the end of the day you gotta look at my career,” he says. “I come up in the rap game with a group, G-Unit. I never came in the game as a solo artist. I still have a group that I’m in, but I’m at a point where I’m putting myself into my own position.”

The more positive mindset Young Buck has put himself in, he says, drew influence from a place you might not have expected: Howard Gentry, Nashville’s vice mayor and mayoral hopeful.

“He came to me, sat me down like a man and really gave me his opinion on how I was carrying myself,” Young Buck says. The rapper’s reputation took a negative turn in 2004 following his connection to a stabbing at that year’s Vibe Awards show (Young Buck is currently on probation, having pled no contest to an assault charge).

Gentry’s nudging toward “pushing positive” turned out to be what the rapper calls one of the most influential conversations of his life.

Positive change continues to be a focus — Young Buck is particularly zeroed in on his new Cashville Records label, to which he’s already signed his own 615 group and storied, Tupac Shakur-founded rap group Tha Outlawz.

Cashville’s first release, the rapper says, will be a compilation of its artists, due in the coming months.

“I’m still growing as an artist,” he says. “My albums [are] only gonna get better and better. The business is only gonna get better and better, and the person is only gonna get better and better.”