Westside Gunn 100

Alvin Lamar Worthy (born July 27, 1982), known professionally as Westside Gunn, is an American rapper and curator from Buffalo, New York.

He is the founder and CEO of independent label and collective Griselda Records, who turned their street buzz into a distribution deal with Shady Records on March 3, 2017. However, in an interview with Joe Budden Gunn announced that he had fulfilled his contractual obligations to Shady Records and has since became an independent artist again.

Gunn is the half-brother of Conway the Machine (sharing the same father), with whom he forms the duo, Hall & Nash, and the cousin of Benny The Butcher.

In 2005, Westside Gunn released Flyest Nig@@ In Charge, Vol. 1, serving it as his very first mixtape. However, his career would be cut short due to run-ins with the law. Gunn had served time in prison from 2006 to 2008 on a weapons charge, and again from 2010 to 2011 for a parole violation. Throughout 2006 to 2011, Westside Gunn did not release any music.

In 2012, after had founded Griselda Records, Gunn was inspired to revitalize his career due to his brother Conway getting shot that same year, which left him, with permanent disabilities, as well as by the 2006 murder of his cousin Machine Gun Black.

Since then, he has (so far) released four solo studio albums, twelve mixtapes, six EPs, and three collaboration projects, two with Conway as Hall & Nash, and one with MF DOOM as WestSideDOOM. His controversially-titled mixtape series, Hitler Wears Hermes, is a flip on The Devil Wears Prada.