The members of the diamond-hard Buffalo rap crew Griselda have been busy lately. Last month, Westside Gunn rose up to something like stardom with his much-feted Pray For Paris album. At the end of March, Westside Gunn’s brother Conway The Machine teamed up with the Alchemist to release the collaborative EP LULU. And now, a month and a half after LULU, we’ve got another Conway EP, this time recorded with a different producer.
On the new nine-track effort No One Mourns The Wicked, Conway joins forces with Big Ghost LTD, the onetime rap comedy-blogger who became a respected producer. Conway and Big Ghost have had a working relationship for a long time; they released the Griselda Ghost EP back in 2015. As a producer, Big Ghost makes stark, ominous boom-bap, and his style makes perfect sense when combined with Conway’s punchy, guttural street-rap style.
On No One Mourns The Wicked, Conway is very much in his bloody-minded comfort zone. The only guests are Griselda affiliates El Camino and Flee Lord, and the aesthetics are bleak and heavy. If you’ve been paying attention to Griselda lately, nothing here will be new to you. But if you’re into hard neck-snap East Coast rap music, it’s something you need to hear. Opening song “Dead Flowers,” in particular, is just majestically ugly. Stream the EP below.
No One Mourns The Wicked is out now, and you can get it at Bandcamp.
