The rapper and executive chatted on the important career changes with Joe Budden and his podcast crew.
Rapper Westside Gunn, born Alvin Lamar Worth, founder of the collective and independent hip hop record label Griselda Records, recently has shared his news about the contract with Eminem‘s Shady Records. The announcement was made during Joe Budden‘s Podcast Episode 390 “Chatty Chatty”, on November 14th.
What you should know is that Shady Records is the world-known label founded and owned by Eminem and his manager Paul Rosenberg in 1999. Since March 2017, his brother Conway The Machine and cousin Westside Gunn from Buffalo were working under the deal with this major label. However, on 2nd November, a debut Shady Records album “Who Made the Sunshine” was released by Alvin, making it the first and the only collaborative projects and giving a start to his free solo career.
“Who Made the Sunshine” is the fourth studio album by Westside Gunn, which was initially planned to be dropped on 28th August but was constrainedly put off due to the death of Griselda Records collaborator DJ Shay. So, its presentation occurred on October 2, 202, and featured the whole roster of Griselda Records, as well as 5 producers – Benny Butcha, Daringer, The Alchemist, Conductor William, and Just Blaze. The album comprises a lot of decent collabs and overall received positive reviews from critics ( At Metacritic it was estimated with an average score of 76.
This is how Westside himself described the end of his contractual obligations:
“I’m off Shady. I’m actually a free agent. It feels great. Who Made The Sunshine was it. I already spoke to Shady Records co-founder Paul Rosenberg. Everything’s good. Like, everything’s signed, sealed, and delivered. I have my paperwork. I’m off Shady.”
The first collective compilation by Griselda and Shady was on November 29, 2019. WWCD (an acronym for What Would Chine Gun Do) appeared at the eighth position on the Billboard Rap Albums and ninth on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts. It was contributed by Buffalo emcees Westside Gunn, Conway The Machine, and Benny The Butcher as well as Buffalo-based producer Daringer. Eminem also made his contribution to “Bang (Remix).” Other famous emcees to be featured on WWCD were 50 Cent and Raekwon. The album was met nicely by critics.
A noise began when there were rumors about the dissatisfaction of the Griselda crew with their relationship with Shady. A week earlier, Conway The Machine caused a lot of confusion on social networks when he published a tweet with an aggressive context, saying: “I’m not f##### wit none of them n##### no more.”
Those rumblings caused speculation between Twitter audience whether Conway was writing that message to Shady Records, in connection with the BET Hip Hop Awards for not nominating him for Lyricist of the Year, or it was directed to other people and had other matters. Here we need to mention that elusive Conway‘s tweet was posted five months after Westside Gunn wrote on the platform, that he was wondering about how the Shady Records know that they were nominated for a BET AWARD that night.
The 38-year-old performer and executive now is expected to become one of the front personalities for hip hop marketing and promotion companies. His 2020 significant project that showed a peak of his talent was Pray for Paris and Flygod is an Awesome God II via Griselda Records. What’s important to mention is that the Westside Gunn and Benny The Butcher are still listed under the management of Jay-Z’s Roc Nation.
Om November 14th Westside Gunn tweeted to thank Shady staff for believing in him and providing a great journey and learning experience and to Paul Rosenberg, whom he called “a man of his word”. The rapper additionally shared a bunch of reposted tweets from fans. Those are extremely happy for Westside‘s achievement and motivated by the true story of a generational artist.