Buffalo, NY · hip-hop · boom-bap

Westside Gunn

1 upcoming festival

Griselda's ringleader — dusty loops, ad-libs as punctuation, and an art-world obsession baked into everything, boom-bap as couture.

Westside Gunn is the stage name of Alvin Worthy, a rapper from Buffalo, New York, and the founder of Griselda, the label and crew he built alongside his brother Conway the Machine and cousin Benny the Butcher. He began releasing music in the 2010s through the ongoing Hitler Wears Hermes mixtape series, and drew wider attention after Griselda signed with Eminem's Shady Records in 2017.

His voice is high and nasal, and his verses are broken up by squealed ad-libs and imitated gunshots, delivered over grimy, largely unquantised loops. Records such as Supreme Blientele and Pray for Paris pair drug-trade narratives with references to high fashion, professional wrestling and contemporary art, an aesthetic he extends into the packaging and rollout of his releases.

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