After years of exploring in and outside of hip-hop, Situation marks Buck 65’s return to the genre, with the ace help of Haligonian DJ/producer Skratch Bastid. Yet on the mic, Buck’s decidedly non-hip-hop hobo fogey MC persona persists, this time waxing not-so-nostalgic for the year 1957, a year that he argues defined the cultural shift in post-war America. He has a variety of reasons; many of them seem to stem directly from The Notorious Bettie Page — and not just specifics of her subversion or a parade of “scum bags and cum rags,” but actual dialogue from the film. Even without this concept, an occasionally breathless Buck is on top of his lyrical and musical game, incorporating his increasingly catholic tastes with consistently bangin’ Bastid beats. Situation might be his most accessible album to date, but that’s just because he keeps getting better.