This Right Here Is Buck 65 (2005)

On his consistently inventive major-label debut, This Right Here Is Buck 65, this Nova Scotia native parcels out equal amounts of empathy (''Cries a Girl'') and absurdity (''Centaur''), delivering honky-tonk parables in a sandpaper spoken-word drawl with enough wry humor to rival Eminem. In fact, his dirges owe as much to rap as to the roots and blues of Johnny Cash, and this oddly captivating country-rap hybrid of an album suggests we're entering a new frontier in hip-hop, with Buck as the foremost pioneer.