There was a time when Westside Gunn and his Griselda cohorts Conway and Benny the Butcher were just some Buffalo rappers warming themselves on the flame sparked by Roc Marciano’s Marcberg. To rap fans who longed for the days of Mobb Deep, Griselda were refreshing, a no-frills trio that recaptured an old-school spirit without being ’90s revivalists. Despite the harsh grayscale atmosphere of their production, the bars have the colorful touch of mid-’00s Atlanta trap, and their swagger feels timeless. Steadily the energy behind Griselda has grown, and now it’s at an apex that nobody saw coming.
Earlier this year, at Virgil Abloh’s Off-White fashion show, the designer and influencer played Westside Gunn’s gutter rap while models strutted down the runway and a man tap-danced. Virgil’s message with the tap dancer didn’t connect, but the cosign gave Griselda an unlikely path into fashion and art spaces typically not welcoming to gritty artists like them. It’s a space that Westside Gunn is obsessed with, and his new album, Pray for Paris is an attempt to leave his crew’s past as a niche underground act behind. His new vision is of going high-art: The album cover was designed by Virgil; the intro is a clip from the record-breaking sale of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi”; and a recent Instagram caption included the obligatory Kanye-style spiel about how he’s not a rapper, he’s an artist making misunderstood “Rare ART.”
Yes, this all sounds like an unbearable pivot. But Pray for Paris is one of the best albums to come out of the Griselda camp so far, good enough to help you forgive the obnoxiousness and make you understand why the crew now have a cultural cachet that rap legends are dying to be attached to: Eminem signed them to his imprint, JAY-Z has become their unofficial mentor, and Kanye West has been seen floating around the three.
To Westside Gunn’s credit, the more overblown his personality becomes, the better his raps get. He blurs the lines between reality and fiction to the point where the streets of Buffalo come off like City of God’s favelas, and his lifestyle raps make him out as the Great Gatsby of Upstate New York. The beat to “Euro Step” sounds refined enough to play during a sit-down dinner in a castle while he describes some snapshots from his life: purchasing a Goyard leash for his Saint Bernard, drinking wine in France with a specialist, and whipping coke with an Avian watch on his wrist. Pray for Paris is consistently this insane, all while switching flows on a dime and rapping on pristine beats. “Bulletproof Bentleys parked outside the Whitney,” he raps on the second track’s graceful DJ Muggs production.
Westside Gunn’s revolving door of guests thrives in this space, though it means he’s sometimes outshined. Gunn wastes a spiritual Alchemist beat with a pitch-lowered misstep on “Claiborne Kick,” but he’s saved by Boldy James’ unmatched precision. But Gunn doesn’t fumble frequently; usually he tosses his guests into the fold and lets them sink or swim. Tyler, the Creator can’t keep up on “327,” but who could when Gunn talks about cooking dope like watching flowers bloom? Tyler makes up for it with his soulful “Party Wit Pop Smoke” production, while Gunn goes on the album’s most unhinged three-bar stretch: “Blood on the Salvator Mundi, we rock cocaine/Tie-dye Dior floss, stickin’ niggas up at Christie’s/Eugene Delacroixs for half price, leather strings and Rickys.”
But even with all of the decadence, Pray for Paris is at its best when Westside Gunn just raps over a grimy beat alongside his Griselda crew. On “Allah Sent Me,” they all share a verse, and their chemistry shines. On “George Bondo,” all three fight for the moment: Westside Gunn prays on a Persian rug, Conway hits the Roc Nation brunch and intimately mingles with an R&B singer, and Benny the Butcher orders a hit at the Venetian. It all feels like a part of Westside Gunn’s vision for Griselda, which may be deranged, but only a mind that determined could take a crew that was destined to exist in a corner of underground rap to having their own ecosystem.
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