Conway the Machine

Born in Buffalo, New York State, Conway the Machine belongs to an East Coast hip-hop tradition with a dark aesthetic, situated between hardcore rap, boom bap and narratives deeply rooted in street experience. Active since the mid-2000s, he reached wider recognition as part of Griselda alongside his half-brother Westside Gunn and his cousin Benny the Butcher — a core that helped bring Buffalo’s rap scene to prominence in the 2010s. After early tapes such as The Devil’s Reject and Reject 2 in 2015, and G.O.A.T. in 2017, Conway the Machine honed a dry, detail-oriented writing style, carried by a voice scarred by the aftermath of a 2012 shooting. His trajectory included Griselda’s deal with Shady Records in 2017, the later founding of his own label Drumwork, and his announcement of leaving Griselda in 2022. In his discography, From King to a God (2020), God Don’t Make Mistakes (2022) and Won’t He Do It (2023) continue this thread of introspection, social tension and technical precision, while collaborative projects like Lulu with The Alchemist (2020), No One Mourns the Wicked with Big Ghost Ltd. (2020) and Speshal Machinery with 38 Spesh (2023) anchor him in the American underground rap scene.