Who is griselda

You make a group, people split quick over money, over argument, anything. They gone. Benny tells me that when they were little and Gunn wanted to have a sleepover, he would convince one of the other boys to ask whichever adult was in charge. Gunn would prep them on exactly what to say and then wait, slyly, in the background. He was convinced it had a higher chance of happening if the request came from someone other than himself.

And he always been like my cousin who always had the new Jordans and new games and the new this and the new that, always got his way. He gave me shoes. So I could shine. Or sometimes he gave me clothes and shit.

As a kid, Gunn shared a home with his uncles and aunts, most of whom were in high school. When he watched them, he was in awe of their gold chains and their fly clothes, but most of all he worshiped their music, hip-hop. At 11, he started to rap, and around the same time he began designing fashion, customizing jeans, shirts, and shoes. They would ride a Greyhound bus and listen to the Lox and Notorious B. We were kind of young but grown.

Me and Conway were coming out to Atlanta at 14 years old, shit like that. Just young as fuck. Just doing everything. A few years ago, in an interview with Complex , Gunn was asked specifically why he makes the music he does when New York City and the rest of East Coast hip-hop have largely progressed toward other sounds.

It was a fair question—there had to be some reason he surged in the opposite direction of the genre and culture of mainstream hip-hop. He grew up. In an impoverished East Buffalo landscape, he turned to the most profitable outlet available to him and got caught up in the streets.

Benny, Conway, and Machine Gun Black did the same. Gunn was still in love with hip-hop, but he hungered for money. Whatever I had to do, whatever I had to sell, I did it or sold it. Just chasing the bag. I had two kids at So I was already a father of two. In those early years he tried to split his time between the music world and any illegal affairs. Benny and Conway were both pursuing careers behind the mic in addition to their more clandestine activities and had picked up a sizable following around the city.

Gunn was more interested in a career on the periphery. In , he released his debut mixtape Flyest Nig in Charge, Vol. A few months after the project dropped he was sent to prison for two years after pleading guilty to a weapons charge. Although Machine Gun Black was older than the rest of the members of Griselda, he was inseparable from them until the day that he died. You know, people from this city act like this, people from that city act that way.

After serving the majority of his sentence Gunn was released in , but ended up back in jail less than 24 months later for violating the terms of his parole. While incarcerated again, he searched for anything to pass the time.

Sometimes he and his cellmates would buy books, read them in two or three days, and then trade with each other so they could have something new to immerse themselves in. So they were doing they thing. Gunn is conflicted about the emotional toll of prison. Incarceration is a fact of life for so many people in places like East Buffalo, entrapped in the web of the American legal system.

But without it, Gunn believes he would not be where he is. In , Gunn was released from prison for good. While he knew he wanted to commit himself fully to the music industry, he was still unsure of what path to take. A few months later, in , Conway was shot as he attempted to enter his truck after exiting a club. One bullet entered his neck, another hit his shoulder, and another struck the back of his head.

His wounds left him paralyzed on the right side of his face. In part, he hoped that his rapping would motivate his brother not to give up on his own career and learn how to navigate his new constrictions.

This is how bro coming? I got to come like this now. I got to fucking He had his own motivations for making the leap. By , the sound of mainstream hip-hop had already undergone the first wave of metamorphosis toward trap and SoundCloud rap. Artists like Future and Chief Keef had grown in prominence by eschewing traditional rap formats.

After seven years away from the mic, in October , Gunn dropped Hitler Wears Hermes , the first of seven mixtapes by the same name.

The sound was enthralling. But the name courted controversy. His intention was for it to be a grimier, more provocative, play on Devil Wears Prada. That is just a title. For an artist from a fringe market like Buffalo, there is an argument to be made that the publicity from the title probably benefited him. Gunn says this was all part of the plan. Gunn is not the first rapper to inhabit this genre. Gangster rap was born out of the curses of mass incarceration and the drug war.

In the midst of a generational attack on Black bodies, hip-hop provided an out for those who could master it. He took a piece of himself and used it to make the music and life he always dreamed of. Like what the fuck is this guy? It draws you in. I mention that Gunn has always been adept at flossing in references to the world of high art without evoking the eyerolls that frequently accompany such material.

For as much as each of his songs is indebted to a particular time period, the songs are not imitations. There are few popular artists who can rightly claim that they got famous alongside their actual family. Even fewer can say they did so making the music they grew up idolizing. Griselda Records often teams up with the label Daupe! Griselda members have a web of business associations. In addition, there are rumors that one or more of the core members are fielding major label offers for their solo work.

In addition to Gunn, Benny, Conway, and their producer Daringer more on him later , the label has also released two projects by the rapper Elcamino.

However, he appears to no longer be an active part of the crew, having not released a project on the label since and not showing up on their latest group album WWCD or in public appearances. Earlier this year, it was announced that Griselda added a woman to its roster: the rapper Armani Caesar.

Westside Gunn and Conway are brothers technically half-brothers—they share a father, not a mother, as you might guess from the fact that they are only five months apart in age. Benny the Butcher is their younger cousin.

He was shot and killed in October, The four of them were a crew called the Forerunners in their high school days, and a s, pre-Daringer incarnation of their crew was called Street Entertainment—a name that briefly overlapped with the beginnings of Griselda. Daringer, the only non-relative member of the core four, knew Westside Gunn for years before they began working together. Alvin Worthy began as a rapper in the early s, and a bunch of his recordings were recently re-released as Flyest Nig in Charge Vol.

But after going on the run from a weapons charge, he was caught, plead guilty to Conspiracy to Commit False Statement to a Firearms Dealer, according to court records obtained by Complex , and was sent to federal prison in While serving time, Gunn met and befriended notorious Buffalo drug kingpin Sly Green, and even appeared with Green in Don Diva magazine in But when Conway was shot in , Gunn picked the torch back up and released Hitler Wears Hermes , kicking off a whole new era for his crew.

Westside's high-pitched rapping voice and distinctive ad-libs are in service of his artistic vision to melt high and low, runway and street, the art gallery and the spray-painted wall outside. Not for nothing, did he once sample Andy Warhol being interviewed at Wrestlemania. That powerful aesthetic, as well as a flood of extremely strong projects, has made him the public face of the Griselda movement. Read our April interview with him here.

Conway has been grinding for years, rapping and putting out a ton of projects under a variety of rap names: Kannon, Killa Angel, Homicide Kannon, Loose Kannon, Jimmy Conway, and finally Conway the Machine. But in the early morning hours of March 17, , his career took a turn. Conway had been living in Atlanta he and his brother had been back and forth between that city and Buffalo regularly since their teen years , but flew back to Buffalo in hopes of garnering a French Montana verse.

Conway, according to newspaper reports , was at the wheel of a car when it was shot from behind. He was hit in his neck and shoulder.

It was a rough road to recovery not for nothing did he name a project Physikal Therapy. But he eventually figured out how to change his style to best suit his new situation.

And his new approach works perfectly. Conway's post-shooting output has the clever raps and fascinating flows of the veteran spitter he is. But it also has something intangible: a unique sound and vision that brings a bit of necessary menace to every track.

Read our March interview with him here. Benny's years on the mixtape grind have served him well. He has taken his talent for vivid songwriting and punchlines, evident on even his earliest releases, and mixed it with his compelling life story, with all of its ups and downs. When you add all that to the patented Griselda dark beats, you have an unstoppable combination.