Part poet, part lefty-observationalist, Buck 65 spits rhymes that consistently comment on society's rights and wrongdoings. His 11th CD--focusing largely on 1957, the year that the Beat Generation was born--is no different in its approach. The horns and background sounds on "Spread `Em" reek of Dragnet as Buck growls out a verbal strip search, while the Bettie Page tale ("Lipstick") finds him singing, "My favorite record's Rumble by Link Wray," with the perfectly subtle amount of Wray-style vibrato guitar. In a lot of ways, while Buck and his DJ--the extremely talented Skratch Bastid--are unequivocally rooted in hip-hop, many of the musical styles on Situation come from decades past. "Cop Shades" mixes `60s soul with `70s horns, while "The Beatific" makes reference to Charlie Parker and the music of `80s band the Motels. Like a high-intensity video game, there's no time to stop, look around, and take in the beauty or ugliness in any Buck 65 song; he fires words with such speed that there is no one `hook' or chorus on the disc that remotely resembles hit-radio material. However, that heady lyrical style has brought him a dedicated fan base and--after 15 years as a recording artist--still renders his music full of interesting and edifying qualities.