Let’s talk about luxury. The lap of luxury has always had a big influence on hip hop in the past… well, since the 80s, but especially in the last decade. Luxury rap has become its own genre, and the pinnacle of that luxury always seems to be in Paris. Where there is a lot of fancy scenery, Paris seems to be the lap of luxury in hip hop, maybe because of that fancy reputation, maybe because of the Louvre, but maybe it is because rappers aren’t seen as rapping about Paris or going to Paris. Plenty of rappers came from gritty backgrounds and discuss those gritty backgrounds of drug dealing, living in the hood and making it out. What if I told you that one person combined those elements and still sounded dope? Look no further than Westside Gunn of Griselda and his album, Pray for Paris. Now, this is my first Westside Gunn project and JESUS CHRIST I should’ve been listening to him much sooner. Westside Gunn has this blend of gangsta and luxury down-pat, as he discusses selling coke and hiding it, but also talks about being seen in places that we’re too poor to go to. We start off with “400 Million Dollars Plus Tax”, which is an auction for a painting and is going for… well… 400 million, plus tax. Then, it goes right into “No Vacancy”, which is the synthesis of what you will be hearing. This, being called Pray for Paris, starts with “Bonjour”, and starts off by discussing high end products, such as whipping foreign cars left and right, but then goes into some hood shit. Like, “Shoot your brains out in broad daylight” shit. “327” is luxury rap, actually about some shoes and sounds like lavish living in a way, and you have songs like “Versace”, where he discusses robbin’ people for their expensive stuff. “$500 Ounces”, though… That song is an experience. The beat? FIRE. The features? FIRE. Westside? FIIRREE! I wish I could just have the song playing right here so you could understand how amazing it is. The stuff that really spoke to me, though? The wrestling references. I was a huge wrestling fan in my youth, so all the references that were intertwined in the songs and outros really caught my attention. The great part about the outros is that they intertwine with the song or the next song in a great way. For example, the outro on “French Toast”, which has a fantastic verse from Wale, and another wrestling reference (I’m never gon’ switch up, they all Eric Bischoff), the outro samples the infamous 2005 Shawn Michaels promo from Montreal and that’s all you need to know.
Westside gets busy on here, but the features definitely deserve some love too. JESUS CHRIST. He wasn’t featured, but all the features manage to deliver in a big way. On “George Bondo”, Griselda labelmates Conway the Machine and Benny the Butcher are coming for blood, “impactin’ the culture like Eric Bischoff”. On “327”, Joey Bada$$ comes through discussing how no one ever wanted smoke but marijuana (peace).Tyler, the Creator takes it back a couple years with his Wolf-like delivery and still manages to blend his old content and new content together. Wale goes hard as I said earlier, and Freddie Gibbs on “$500 Ounces”… there are so many bars that I just need you to listen to, but you can call him Fred DiBiase now. And Roc Marciano plays with MAC-11 in his verse in such a way that is so beautiful… in a hood way.
This album was entertaining and is pretty good, bar-for-bar. That being said, it isn’t perfect. One of the first things I noticed on the second listen was that a good amount of these songs definitely have the “rags-to-riches” style in common. The bars are still good, but I was wanting a little more variation. Also, Westside Gunn is dope, but… he ain’t no singer… “Allah Sent Me” has some dope verses, but when we get to that hook, you just want to turn the song off. These are literally the only things that I could think were less than favorable on this album.
Normally, I would say that albums like these are an acquired taste, but nah. The only way you won’t like this is if you just aren’t a rap fan. Seriously, this has something for just about everyone. It has the fantastic bars from everyone, it has the rags-to-riches raps on lock, it has the braggadocios raps when you feelin’ yourself, all while having some INSANE production. If I were to give it a rating, it’d be a 4/5 stars.
Favorite Song (s): $500 Ounces, 327
Least Favorite: Allah Sent Me
Illest Rhymes: Euro Step
