Westside Gunn’s Pray for Paris released April 17th, 2020. The album cover sets the tone immediately: a David and Goliath baroque painting edited with chains, Westside’s baby photo placed in one of them, designed by Virgil. Already pushing a high-end, smooth, classy feel. I listened to this every day when it dropped, yelling Westside’s adlibs in my room like my neighbors couldn’t hear me.
The album opens with “450 Million Plus Tax,” a live recording of the Salvator Mundi auction. Salvator Mundi (“Savior of the World”) is a Leonardo da Vinci painting of Jesus in Renaissance clothing, performing a hand mudra and holding a crystal ball in his left hand. It hammer-priced at $450 million plus tax. The choice to open here isn’t arbitrary: it frames everything that follows as sacred, rare, and obscenely valuable. Beyond the grimy backbone of the Griselda family, Benny the Butcher and Conway the Machine, the album pulls in perfectly placed features from Joey Badass, Tyler the Creator, Valee, and Freddie Gibbs.
“French Toast” is one of my top three on the album. Like most of the record, it rides soft, shiny keys, but here they cascade and drive the whole song, locking you in. The concept is Westside in Paris, trying to impress a woman over breakfast, noting that they don’t even call it French toast there. The background singers on the refrain “Crushin’ on you” are really the syrup of the beat, holding the 2000s R&B warmth together through the end. Then the song closes on audio from a wrestling match where a wrestler admits he’s no singer, and reminds everyone that he’s still the showstopper, the headliner, the main event. It’s absurd and perfect.
“Euro Step” follows, picking up the BPM and loosening into something that feels almost like freestyle, especially in the humming towards the end, like Westside is still feeling out the words. Produced by Conductor Williams, it brings the grimy, braggadocious energy that the album’s more daring listeners came for.
“Versace” might be the track that best captures the album’s soul. It samples “They Were Our Love” by the Clark Sisters, letting those spirited vocals breathe in the background while Westside’s aggressive ad-libs push from the front. The final lines land with unexpected weight: “Haven’t seen your fam in years (ah) / Lookin’ at old prics / Droppin’ tears, my old celly live like that (ah) / Inshallah, I’m never going back.” There’s real longing underneath the flexing there, a rare moment of vulnerability on an otherwise heavily armored record.
The final track, “Le Djoliba,” features Cartier Williams tap dancing on the beat. Tap dancing is typically coded as high-end, refined, but here it doubles as stepping on bricks, on product: “Had that n**a tap dancin on the blow.” Westside collapses the elegant and the grimy into one image, which is really what the whole album is doing.
Pray for Paris runs 36 minutes. I highly recommend it. If you’ve got a commute to fill, let Westside do it.
