Daily Download: "Centaur," Buck 65

Before I'd ever heard a note of the music of Nova Scotian rapper Richard Terfry, aka Buck 65, I'd heard him referred to one too many times as "the Tom Waits of hip-hop," and was reasonably sure I'd hate it. I love Waits, but any artist who is described as sounding like him is, as a rule, dreadful. And indeed, I found last year's heavily hyped and critically adored "This Right Here Is Buck 65" nearly unlistenable in its ham-handed rusticity, with Terfry trying so damn hard to sound gruff and world-weary, and coming across as simply forced and false. The lyrics sounded great, but I just couldn't ignore the voice long enough to appreciate them. It was not always thus, apparently. The Tom Waits voice and rural affectations are, it turns out, a relatively recent development in Terfry's music. This track, from 1999's "The Vertex," also appears in a rerecorded version on "This Right Here," but this earlier version is far superior. Told from the perspective of an exceptionally well-hung centaur, it's a hilarious inversion of mainstream hip-hop's sexual braggadocio as well as a sad and strangely touching tale of a misunderstood and objectified beast.