by Rushil Kartala

Over the past couple years no one has had more buzz in the underground than Griselda. The trio consisting of Benny the Butcher, Conway the Machine, and Westside Gunn have dropped numerous solo projects over the years and have, until this point in time, dropped one project together. The three of them come from Buffalo, New York, where they grew up through a life of crime. Themes of guns, drugs, and murder come up frequently in their music. Though they are vastly different from a number of acts on the come up in this new age of hip-hop, their work ethic is unmatched.

In 2019 alone the trio has released 8 projects: 7 solo projects and 1 collaborative one. Some argue that this new age of hip-hop is characterized by rappers pumping out projects, giving little to no thought about lyrics or beat selection. Griselda proves all of these people wrong. Listening to just one verse from any of these projects you can tell the wordplay and rhyming patterns from these guys is unmatched. Griselda is most often described as “grimy” and for good reason. The stark images they paint about living on the streets, selling crack and surrounded by violence, coupled with their aggressive delivery takes trap rapping to a whole other level. They consistently rap like they have a chip on their shoulder, running through the gray skies of Buffalo. Griselda was signed to Eminem’s Shady Records label in 2018, the same year the trio really blew up. While Conway and Westside Gunn continue to rap under Shady Records, Benny has taken his talents to Jay-Z’s Roc Nation. This, however, has not affected the trio’s creative process and friendship and they still continue to work together. Though Griselda has collectively released one album together, their best work comes from their solo projects.

Benny the Butcher is, in my eyes, the leader of Griselda. He blew up mainly with his 2018 album, Tana Talk 3, which was in part produced by legendary underground producer The Alchemist. Benny is the most technical rapper out of the whole Griselda bunch, which is a hard feat to pull off. He raps mainly about his days of his past, which is mostly of selling drugs. Benny also quite consistently raps about Griselda being on top of the others in the rap game. On his 2019 EP The Plugs I Met Benny raps, “I think they all overrated, I think they all are outdated.” Benny himself had stated off of “Broken Bottles” on Tana Talk 3 that he was going to “write a whole album about the plugs [he] met”, which is what he subsequently did a year later. Not only does Benny have the lyrical ability, he also has a cold-hearted demeanor that makes all of his material perfect for walking alone during a cold winter night.

Conway the Machine is the second most popular member of Griselda. His strength comes from his delivery and beat selection in comparison to Benny’s lyrical ability. He has an incredible ear for dark-sounding beats and dominates every one he is on. People have attributed his husky delivery to his face being half-paralyzed after suffering a gunshot wound to the back of his head. With this delivery, Conway raps about most of the same things as Benny; drugs and guns. The opening lines of the track “May Block” shows you what Conway is all about - “My hood made me a killer, you can see it in my eyes/Ever since I caught that first body it’s been murder on my mind”.

Westside Gunn is the least popular member of Griselda, but also my personal favorite. Gunn is most known for his ad-libs, which some find annoying or too over the top, but many have grown to love it. His voice is also slightly grating at first, but others rappers have experienced even greater success with even weirder inflections (i.e. Danny Brown). Gunn has had great critical success with his 2018 album Supreme Blientele, a play on words of Ghostface Killah’s 2000 classic Supreme Clientele. While Conway and Benny are quite similar in my eyes, Westside Gunn is the wildcard. His name is a derivation of famous WWE wrestler’s names and he includes samples of WWE clips in a number of his songs. What Westside Gunn lacks in technical rapping, he makes up for in a unique, straining delivery and crazy ad-libs. His most popular song, “Elizabeth”, begins with a soothing jazz instrumental and 10 seconds in the listener is struck with Gunn’s coveted “DRRRR”. It doesn’t take long after that for Gunn to use his second most popular ad-lib “boom boom boom BOOM”. Similar to the rest of Griselda, Westside Gunn raps about, you guessed it, drugs and guns, but also seems to add in more lyrics about designer clothing and his lavish style (whether that money comes from legal ways or not). The cover of Supreme Blientele shows him with a gun and a Fendi mask over his head and the cover of his mixtape Hitler Wears Hermes 7 shows him with an oversized Balenciaga coat on. A couple bars from his song “Wrestlemania 20” captures Gunn’s lyrical content perfectly - “Make sure my Fila Gosha/Might sell a thousand bricks for the culture”.

Benny has said that Griselda is not yet at where the group wants it to be. The trio wants Griselda to expand more, indoctrinating like-minded rappers into their group. Acts like Roc Marciano, Elcamino, and The Alchemist have already begun working with Griselda extensively. Griselda has a combination of boom bap and street rap that will never break fully into the mainstream, but on the other hand will never go out of style - and I think that’s exactly the type of music they want to make. If Griselda continues on the same trajectory that they are going in, they will soon undoubtedly become the kings of the underground.