Richard Terfry was born in Mount Uniacke, Nova Scotia — a rural community of a few hundred people, 40km north of Halifax. He was first exposed to hip-hop in the mid-1980s through CBC Stereo's late-night show Brave New Waves and Halifax campus community radio station CKDU (which broadcast at only 33 watts — he had to climb a tree in his yard to hear the station's hip-hop show). Fascinated by hip-hop, he taught himself to rap, DJ, and produce records. First song ever written: 'T.C.B.' (Taking Care of Business), typed on his mother's typewriter in 1983 or 1984 — never recorded. First self-produced song: 'The Rhyme Has To Be Good' — recorded 1988. ('Totally on the positivity tip. You can barely hear it through the hiss, but it's not bad. The beat is kinda hot!' — April 2002 mailing list.)
With little infrastructure around him, he absorbed an unusually wide range of influences: Kool Keith, David Lynch, MC Shan, Leonard Cohen, Townes Van Zandt, old-time American folk music, Greek/Roman mythology, and rural Nova Scotian culture. This combination of hip-hop craft with introspective, literary, and Americana-influenced storytelling defines his work.
His very first group was Haltown Projex — formed with Witchdoc Jorun (= Jorun Bombay), Bonshah, and Tallis Newkirk. This predates all his solo Buck 65 work and represents the true beginning of his Jorun Bombay creative partnership.
He has used numerous aliases: Stinkin' Rich (early Halifax cassette era), DJ Critical (CKDU radio host), Jesus Murphy (later CKDU show name), Johnny Rockwell, Uncle Climax, Haslam, Dirk Thornton. Since 1996, Buck 65 has been his primary name.
Personal details: never drunk alcohol, never used drugs. An obsessive reader — typically has multiple books on the go simultaneously (known references: Bulgakov, Rilke, Cummings, Bukowski, Burroughs, Anaïs Nin). Watches at least one film per day. His mother died of breast cancer (mentioned once, Exclaim interview). In 2002, his label funded a Paris residency so he could be with his girlfriend while she studied there — an artistically fertile period documented in the Paris HipHopSection interview.
Signed to Warner Music Canada in 2002 — one of the rare underground hip-hop artists to make a major-label transition without compromising his abstract, collage approach. Celebrity fans at the time of the 2002 Paris interview (self-reported): Radiohead, Vincent Gallo, Aphex Twin, Melissa Auf Der Maur. Since September 2008, he has been a weekday radio host on CBC Music's Drive show (as Rich Terfry), making him one of Canada's most visible public-radio personalities.
His production philosophy centres on crate-digging for completely unknown breaks and samples: 'It's like religion to me to always dig deeper and deeper and deeper and always use breaks that people don't know. It's just one of my rules to try to the best of my knowledge to never use drums that anybody else ever used.' His primary sampler is the E-MU SP-1200.
1994Game Tight 1
15 tracks43m
Early release, recorded 1994, reissued 2001. From the Stinkin' Rich / early Halifax era. Released on Murderecords (Sloan's label).
