Griselda fans have been blessed ever since the group started their takeover of the rap industry. Since 2018, it seems like every other week featured a new Griselda drop.
With the recent release of Westside Gunn’s Hitler Wears Hermes 8: Sincerely Adolf, which featured the outstanding “Hell on Earth, Pt. 2”, we thought it would be a good time to take a look back at all the great Griselda posse cuts over the past few years.
Side note: if our 50 greatest posse cuts of all time list, we said a posse cut needs to include at least four rappers, but we’re going to make an exception for this, because, well, it’s Griselda.
With three of the best rappers to come out of the 2010s, and still going strong in the 2020s, here are the 15 greatest Griselda posse cuts of all time.
15. Benny The Butcher – “War Paint”
Album: Burden of Proof
Released: October 16, 2020
Producer: Hit-Boy
Best line: “No emotions, I mastered pain with what we smokin’ / Raw made hustlers on my block stars like Billy Ocean”
Griselda sound the best when they’re rapping over grimy beats with soulful samples, and that’s exactly what we get on “War Paint.” Featured on the Benny and Hit-Boy collaboration project, Burden of Proof, the track is the perfect showcase of how the Griselda rappers can emotionally reminisce on hard times, while flexing their present status at the same time.
14. Conway the Machine – “Tito’s Back”
Album: Look What I Became
Released: September 4, 2019
Producer: Daringer
Best line: “I went from playin’ with ninas and click-clackin’ them llamas / To walkin’ out of Neiman’s, mix-matchin’ designer”
West doesn’t even rap on “Tito’s Back”, but then again, he doesn’t need to. Griselda soldiers Conway and Benny step up to the plate and trade vicious verses back and forth, all while West is the background spilling champagne and talking that King of New York shit.
13. DMX – “Hood Blues”
Album: Exodus
Released: May 28, 2021
Producer: Def Jam
Best line: “New Yeezys, only me and Ye with ’em”
No disrespect to the late, great DMX, but Griselda made this song entirely their own. Over a soulful “Shady Blues” sample courtesy of Lee Mason & His Orchestra, all three rappers deliver standout verses, with DMX coming on at the end as almost an afterthought.
12. Conway the Machine – “S.E. Gang”
Album: La Maquina
Released: April 16, 2021
Producer: Daringer
Best line: “I’m the new king of this shit, feel I’m the best since ’96”
“S.E. Gang”, which stands for Street Entertainment Gang, is a tribute to the original incarnation of the Griselda crew, which also included Benny’s late brother, Machine Gun Black, and FreeCutter, who is currently locked up. In a 2021 interview on Bars On I-95, Westside Gunn explained, “Two out of five is not with us. Street Entertainment, that was the mob, that was the family.”
11. Westside Gunn – “The Butcher and The Blade”
Album: Who Made the Sunshine
Released: October 2, 2020
Producer: Daringer, Beat Butcha
Best line: “Your wrist “tick-tick”, boy, the hand on my watch spin / Not in Cali to shop, I came to send a box in”
This is vintage Griselda – a frenetic piano loop courtesy of Daringer, Beat Butcha, and West, Con and Benny straight spitting. Conway talking about saving money during the pandemic is just classic shit.
10. Westside Gunn – “Allah Sent Me”
Album: Pray for Paris
Released: April 17, 2020
Producer: Daringer
Best line: “Niggas know my flow sacred as a hundred chapels / I built another statue up from the gravel”
In the immortal words of Pusha T, the beat for “Allah Sent Me” is just YEUGH! No other producer, other than Beat Butcha, has crafted better soundscapes for Griselda to rap over than Daringer – he knows how to meld the perfect drum kicks with the perfect loops, which has defined their whole sound.
9. DJ Premier – “Headlines”
Album: N/A
Released: May 17, 2019
Producer: DJ Premier
Best line: “Drake had Rihanna, Mike had Madonna / But I drove a few bricks through the Carolinas”
The legendary DJ Premier provides the chilled out, boom-bap and Westside interpolates Raekwon off “Motherless Child” for the hook. Doesn’t get any better than this for boom-bap hip hop.
8. Westside Gunn – “George Bondo”
Album: Pray for Paris
Released: April 17, 2020
Producer: Beat Butcha
Best line: “If thou steal from FLYGOD, that’s a sin / It ain’t another rapper that’s alive that can match my pen”
Pray for Paris has probably been the highest profile release from the Griselda crew to date, with features from Joey Bada$$, Tyler, the Creator and Freddie Gibbs boosting up star power on the album. But West made sure to keep it vintage Griselda, with highlight showings from his family like on this track in particular.
7. Westside Gunn – “Kool G”
Album: Hitler Wears Hermes 7
Released: October 29, 2019
Producer: Daringer, The Alchemist
Best line: “Cherry Maybach, look how I sit back, I had the TEC and MAC / This shit is mismatched”
Is there’s one OG rapper that you can point at for fathering the street style of artists like Raekwon, Big, Nas, Jay-Z and now, Griselda, it is the legendary Kool G Rap, one of the greatest rappers of all time. It’s only right that the trio pay tribute to one of the GOATs of lyrical, street rapping.
6. Westside Gunn – “98 Sabres”
Album: Who Made the Sunshine
Released: October 2, 2020
Producer: Just Blaze
Best line: “Where I’m from, we ignorant, graduatin’ average / Fuck that, if you can flip money, then you talented”
If you didn’t read the album’s credits beforehand, then it was a beautiful surprise when you got to the end of Who Made the Sunshine and heard Just Blaze’s name as “98 Sabres” got started. The legendary producer provides his trademark, anthem sound, all while keeping it Griselda-style gutter, while West, Con and Benny, along with Armani Caesar drop straight dope.
5. Griselda – “Chef Dreds”
Album: WWCD
Released: November 29, 2019
Producer: Daringer, Beat Butcha
Best line: “I pull that gun up, you slippin’, you better run it / Shells, those feel like oatmeal, they sit in your stomach”
One of the biggest things that separates Griselda from other groups is that these guys are literally family. The three rappers’ chemistry on the mic is undeniable and “Chef Dreds” is the perfect example of this. This opening track off WWCD is basically just one long verse with West, Con and Benny trading line for line seamlessly, that only years of rapping together could have achieved.
4. Westside Gunn – “Brutus”
Album: Supreme Blientele
Released: June 22, 2018
Producer: Pete Rock
Best line: “They understand I paint these pictures ’cause I’m living like it / When I spit, it makes you feel like you got hit with lightning”
Flygod put Griselda on the map, but it was Supreme Blientele that made everyone sit up and take notice. Westside pulled in big features from Jadakiss, Busta Rhymes, Elzhi and Anderson .Paak, while tapping producers like Pete Rock for this classic track, to show the world what he was truly about.
3. Westside Gunn – “Hell on Earth, Pt. 2”
Album: Hitler Wears Hermes 8: Sincerely Adolf
Released: September 24, 2021
Producer: Sovren
Best line: “I thought these niggas crooks, why all these niggas shook?”
The Griselda rappers all drop dope verses, as you would expect, but the real star of this posse cut is the producer Sovren, who crafts the perfect boom-bap soundscape that would have any hip hop head looking for Mobb Deep’s The Infamous to listen to afterwards.
2. Conway the Machine – “Spurs 3”
Album: From King to a God
Released: September 11, 2020
Producer: Beat Butcha
Best line: “Ask the homie Wayno and ’em, they’ll confess / Lotta albums are suddenly startin’ to feel a lil’ more Griselda-esque”
Conway uses “Spurs 3” to get some shit off his chest, reminding rap fans that Griselda are the leaders of this ’90s revivalist movement and checking those artists who are trying to bite their style. Meanwhile West brags about his side girl buying him a TEC-9 for a present. Just Griselda things.
1. Griselda – “Dr. Bird’s”
Album: WWCD
Released: November 29, 2019
Producer: Daringer, Beat Butcha
Best line: “Runway Margiela, that type shit on my bitch / Butterflies and spikes, that type shit on my kicks”
This is peak-Griselda. In-house producers Daringer and Beat Butcha supply the foreboding production (with no samples by the way), while West, Con and Benny throw out one-of-a-kind threats and boasts like it’s second nature to them. All while flexing about Virgil Abloh writing “brick” on their bricks.
