Aye yo. In 2016, you would hardly find hardcore rap on the radio. New listeners of the genre got their new idols, and old school fans can now only remember the times when boom bap was the main sub-genre, but in the city of Buffalo, something was happening—a foreshadow of big things to come. You can feel the force in the streets of the city—force that will shake the whole underground scene so much that even Jay-Z, Kanye West, or Drake will feel it. Their way up is making Griselda with their co-founder Westside Gunn in front.
Alvin Lamar Worthy is a thirty-nine-year-old rapper, art curator, and co-founder of Griselda Records. Today, he has countless projects under his belt and has earned his status as one of the most important rappers of our time. We, however, return to his first studio album, Flygod. That was preceded by four solo mixtapes, including three installments of the iconic Hitler Wears Hermes series and two collaborative projects with his blood brother, Conway The Machine. It was the Flygod album, however, that catapulted Gunn into the limelight.
We’ll begin each chapter of our understanding of the record with excerpts from Gunn’s lyrics. Two of them come from the Flygod album. We’ll use the excerpts as a springboard to decode Gunn’s world of seeming opposites, which nevertheless attract and together form the backbone of the entire uniqueness of the Flygod project.
“Shot him more times, left that ni**a more dead.“
Violence, distinctive adlibs, uncompromising, twisted humor, and a voice that instantly gets under your skin. We are on the first imaginary layer of an album that immediately surprises the unprepared listener. Westside Gunn, like the other members of the main trio of Griselda Records, hails from Buffalo. It’s the most dangerous city in New York State, and the rapper certainly doesn’t hide that fact. Street stories, movie-like shootouts, and drug themes all breathe on you from every track. Even the individual skits often deal with infamous drug lords.
Thanks to that, Flygod seems like a dark thriller. The names of the tracks, like Chine Gun, King City, Free Chapo, or Omar’s Coming, which recalls a famous character from the series The Wire, will instantly paint a picture of the type of music you can expect. The whole album could then be taken as a recall to mafioso rap of the 90s and the era of Wu-Tang Clan. That would, however, mean cutting out the things that make this album unique, such as the almost humorously distinct adlibs or biting and sometimes high school-like sounding voice of Gunn. Something that goes directly against tough lyrics but works perfectly together. We’ve already spent enough time in the underworld of Buffalo; now let’s continue to the high fashion and classical art.
“Blood on the Salvator Mundi / We rock cocaine.”
The above-mentioned line perfectly sums up the originality that relates to the album Flygod, the whole Griselda, and even a sub-genre, neo boom bap, into which we can place this album. Westside Gunn loves art, fashion, and money. In his lyrics, you can hear the connection between the two opposite worlds. The dark, violent, and full of poverty that is connected with his beginnings and a new one, shining and free. The album is full of references to famous pieces of art, like the Salvador Mundi painting by Leonardo da Vinci, which at the time was the most expensive painting ever sold. Westside Gunn is painting colorful paintings iced with gunpowder and cocaine here. His voice, lyrics, or style of presentation may seem egocentric or selfish, but the opposite is true. His key to success is cooperation.
“Every day, make money and pray (Gustavo).“
Underneath the hard roots and glossy veneer are values such as family, brotherhood, and work. As Gunn has mentioned many times, he doesn’t consider himself a rapper but rather a curator. He loves to bring different people together and use them to paint a certain picture. The love of rap is the key to the movement’s enormous success. Gunn is surrounded by the producers involved in the already iconic Griselda sound. The album Flygod is kept afloat by hard, dirty beats that have elements of jazz in them, and especially lilting samples that don’t seem to fit at all with the scratchy melodies full of dusty drums. The Alchemist, Daringer, Camoflauge Monk, Roc Marciano, Tha God Fahim, Apollo Brown, and Statik Selektah are names that can always do great things when channeled correctly. And that’s exactly what Gunn does.
Benny The Butcher, Conway The Machine, Mach-Hommy, Meyhem Lauren, Action Bronson, Danny Brown, Skyzoo, or Roc Marciano are then just guests, crowning the whole Flygod as the main album of the neo boom bap movement that nowadays rules the underground scene. Westside Gunn went through a lot, and in his music, you can find pieces of his soul, his admiration for the arts, and his love for cooperation. Each of the above-mentioned opposites is making Flygod an interesting album, and Gunn’s working process is making him a successful artist.
Translated from Czech by Rado.
