Westside Gunn at Coachella, April 15, 2018.
(Scott Dudelson/Getty Images)
MUSICSET
Buffalo Soldiers: The Rise of Westside Gunn and Griselda Records
Regional, underground rap for the unlikely win in 2020. After years unapologetically repping a city that wasn't on anyone's hip-hop map, the Griselda Records crew has risen above ground as the face of the genre's hardcore, boom-bap spirit.
Matty Karas, curator
October 20, 2020

The Flygod Takes Flight

You know part of Westside Gunn’s story: the cosigns from Jay-Z and Eminem, the appearances at Paris Fashion Week, the grimy, ice-cold raps. But there’s something deeper at work for the Flygod. The Griselda MC talks about his Buffalo roots, how his music gamble paid off, and his just-released Shady Records debut, ‘Who Made the Sunshine.’
QUOTABLES!
QUOTE
You had to be in the streets to understand really what street rap is. Like it's easy for — you know, people can say the words and make it rhyme and sound good. But if you know, you know.

The Griselda Goon-Rap Renaissance

There's no Griselda Records starter pack, no canonical classic to lure you in. That's not how the Buffalo rap crew does business. Instead, there are whole new albums showing up every week or two, offering more ancestrally brutalist head-nod street-rap, more granular talk about drug sales and bullet fragments, more lightly refracted boom-bap beats, more samples of old pro-wrestling promos.
QUOTABLES!
QUOTE
This lane was dead. It was looked at like, 'We not listening to that s***. Don't play this s*** in my car.' Everybody dancing and having fun... No Drake, no LeBron James was talking about us... Nobody. But they will today. So, my job is done. My job is done.

Benny the Butcher's Burden Is to Prove He's a Legend

Jeremie Pennick knows he has something to prove. There's a reason that the veteran Buffalo rapper known professionally as Benny the Butcher named his new album Burden of Proof. After years of grinding, releasing mixtape after mixtape (and being interrupted by occasional stints behind bars), Benny's star has risen in recent years, alongside his cousins Westside Gunn and Conway the Machine.
What is a REDEF Set?
A REDEF Set is a curated collection of articles from around a topic, designed to show a variety of outlooks on a subject
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