“ I don’t really try to overthink it or nothing. I didn’t go in with any sort of game plan, I just wanted to get back to just being me, and feeling free to record how I want, the things that I want, and work with the artists that I want to work with. So I kind of just simplified it in that matter, I was really only focused on making a great album”
“I wanted people to know that despite the struggles I've been through in my life, I’m not a miserable person. I’m having fun, I’m living life to the fullest, i’m travelling, i’m eating at five star restaurants…four times a week”,I’m painting pictures when I'm recording, making movies. Every movie has its climax, its ups and downs. I kind of stick to the formula with that, so yeah it was definitely conscious to speak highly of myself to myself throughout the process. I think that’s important”
“I see it like I'm climbing tiers with every record I release”
“that’s the beauty of the journey. It was a blessing in disguise. I was blessed with age. When I came into this shit I thought it was going to be something that would hinder me, being older, especially because year on year it seems like everyone’s looking for the next fire young n*gga. I think being older gave me wisdom, I had the journey, I had already lived through every era of rap. Besides the shit in the 80s, I was hip-hop lover when NWA, Spice 1, MC Eiht, Ice T and all them niggas was winning. I was a hip-hop lover when Biggie Smalls came out, when Onyx, Mobb deep, Jay Z and Nas came out, era after era. Busta Rhymes, DMX, Tupac, when Wu Tang took over and the South started winning. I was around when trap took over, when drill took over”.
If you’ve found yourself caught between rap allegiances whilst scrolling through your personal playlist in the past few weeks, you may have missed that in the midst of all of rap music’s chaotic energy right now, Conway The Machine has returned, and is offering rap fans an affecting alternative. Never the one to get caught up in the mix, with his new album ‘Slant Face Killer’, Buffalo New York’s rap sage has delivered yet another album that packages the zeitgeist of the ‘real rap’ era for people who are looking for good music, everywhere. It’s evident that his influence makes impact with every release, in fact when I catch the rapper on the phone in the days after the albums’ release, he tells me that the most affecting reaction he’s received so far was a fan in South Africa reaching out to tell him that his music “changed his life”. It’s exactly that sort of interaction that drives Conway The Machine to continue delivering the kind of standard-setting rap albums that he’s produced of late. When it comes to industry love however, Conway doesn’t feel moved by that sort of thing, he shrugs it off “It’s about the interaction from my fans really” he says, “I don’t really care about nobody in the industry”.
I don’t see why he would, as the past few years have seen him sat firmly in his discography era, wheeling off future classic albums such as “Won’t He Do It”, “Hall & Nash 2” with Westside Gunn and The Alchemist, and ‘The Album’ via his own label Drum Works. It seems as though since the rapper's departure from Griselda, he’s placed much focus on releasing with a freedom that doesn’t feel as though he’s pandering to any current music industry landscape, delivering timeless music year on year. This approach bleeds into his process, as the rapper tells me of the journey he went on to record the record feeling unnervingly natural. “Really, it’s kind of simple”, he says “I don’t really try to overthink it or nothing. I didn’t go in with any sort of game plan, I just wanted to get back to just being me, and feeling free to record how I want, the things that I want, and work with the artists that I want to work with. So I kind of just simplified it in that matter, I was really only focused on making a great album”.
Staying out of the mix doesn’t mean Conway isn’t going through his own tribulations; however, he is after all a complex individual with a plethora of complex life experiences that have brought on their own personal forms of pain and trauma. With “Slant Face Killer”, it feels as though we are getting an increasingly raw and uncut Conway, a version of the rapper that is as spectrally inclined to open up about his mental health and have a deep conversation, as he is not to hesitate “to get active, if it’s one line crossed”. It’s one of the way’s that he continues to connect with his fans on a human level. “I think that’s what my day one fans kind of fuck with”, he says, “That attitude that I have, that chip on my shoulder I bring into the studio with me when I’m working on an album”. “It was refreshing to get back to that”, he further elaborates on the recording process. “It’s tunnel vision when I'm recording, I don’t really look at what nobody else is doing, none of that, I'm just locked in”.
Being armed with this reluctance to engage with the peripheral allows Conway to continue living up to his moniker of "the machine”. On lead single ‘Give & Give’, he tells fans that he’s “got a couple albums recorded and even more in storage”, closely following that bar with a manifestation rooted in self-belief saying “you’re thinking top ten rappers, I'm thinking more the Forbes list”. With every new release, it seems as though Conway is operating within a headspace that speaks to him being in his prime territory now more than ever. When I put this to the rapper he shares candidly, ‘I’ve realised that not staying focused on this music shit is my kryptonite. I let so much shit distract me. Yeah, like the last two or three albums I did I felt kind of overwhelmed with a lot of shit, a lot of depression and self doubt. I was stressing about a lot of stuff”. In amongst that overwhelm, Conway made a conscious decision to shift the perspective slightly with this new album. “I thought, ‘what am I stressing about the little shit for, you know what I mean?” he says. “I feel like if I could just master being able to stay focused, I could even take it to a whole other level, that’d be a whole different level of machine right there”.
It’s interesting to hear things from Conway’s perspective, after all Slant Face Killer comes with its own silver linings, all communicated through the innovation in his bars which allude to the tough times he’s faced over the time he spent recording it. All of it’s fourteen tracks provide listeners with a snapshot into the rapper’s psyche in their own way, and invites them to share in the visceral journey Conway has taken in alchemising his own trials and tribulations into beautiful art; which has been a signature of the rapper's craft from his Griselda days right up to the present day. Albeit it’s not at all channelled in the a-typical gangsterisms contemporary rap fans are used too. Surprisingly, Conway leans on positive and confident self-talk to assert his legendary status. Across the album he speaks of himself with grace, and when I wonder out loud if this element of the offering was conscious, he responds, “Yeah, it was. I wanted people to know that despite the struggles I've been through in my life, I’m not a miserable person. I’m having fun, I’m living life to the fullest, i’m travelling, i’m eating at five star restaurants…four times a week”, he cracks, “I’m good you know what I mean? I’m painting pictures when I'm recording, making movies. Every movie has its climax, its ups and downs. I kind of stick to the formula with that, so yeah it was definitely conscious to speak highly of myself to myself throughout the process. I think that’s important”.
As we traverse a wider conversation surrounding the discourse between rap and mental health, our talk briefly turns to a screenplay the rapper is writing for a film called ‘The Therapist’. “I’m taking my time with it”, Conway tells me of the writing process which started over a year ago. “It’s got everything to do with the music, and the come up. It’s not your typical rags to riches story though, it’s really going to highlight the common battles that rappers face but might not be as confident to put on wax or be transparent about. It’s about how once one acquires the fame and the blessings that we all strive for when we get into this shit. I want to paint the picture of how you can navigate through the bullshit, because that can be hard. Everybody doesn't have the strength to navigate through that, the mental shit that it comes along with. People think that they know what being a rapper or entertainer is about, they don’t. Outside of the jewels, the magazine covers, the fame, and videos and groupies and all that shit, when all the noise is shut out and you’re alone, a lot of heavy shit can come to the surface. There’s love, jealousy, entitlement, envy, hate, naysayers, doubters and so much more tied to this game, navigating that mentally can be hard” he tells me.
When asked if there are many parallels between the medium of writing music and screenwriting, Conway agrees “It’s the same with music, like I'll speak little messages of that in my music from time to time too, but it’s the same thing man”. ‘The Therapist’ won’t be arriving anytime soon though, Conway admits “It’s a long-term project for sure, I write a little here, a little there, making a movie is an arduous process. When it’s due though, it’s going to be one for the ages” he affirms. Our conversation continues into a discussion on how the thematic influences of ‘The Therapist’ are being subtly displayed by young artists making their way to the upper echelons of the music industry right now, particularly in the realm of rap. On Slant Face Killer, and all of his previous records for that matter, Conway has remained outspoken on the dichotomy between rap and mental health through the lens of his own experiences. Rap is often a heavier genre, tackling heavy subjects, and fans aren't frequently troubled by the fact that the act of engaging with the rap world has the potential to leave people physically or mentally scarred. For many, it’s mere entertainment. I wonder if Conway has any gems to share outside of the album on how he’s kept his integrity operating in the rap world and staying out of any unnecessary drama, to which he responds heartily, “I stay at home when I'm dealing with my own shit. I just turn a beat on and let my pen take my mind off it. I tap into what I do well, and by time I'm done I don’t feel what I was feeling before I started writing. So that’s the only thing I can do, and the only gem I have to share on that. To find solace in doing the things that you love.”
That process of writing for catharsis cuts through on Slant Face Killer, it’s a skill that sets Conway apart from his peers. ‘Surf and Turf’ provides the perfect example of his idiosyncratic ability to package the essence of rap's most nostalgic era’s for his audience in a way that feels tangible and relatable. As we discuss how Conway entered the game later than a lot of other rappers has contributed to his heightened perspective with regards to how to tell stories that are rooted in real life he drops even more gems. Conway is an artist that has forged a love for his craft at a time when real stories were being told. I ask if he feels that works in his favour, to which he responds, “Yes, hell yeah, that’s the beauty of the journey. It was a blessing in disguise. I was blessed with age. When I came into this shit I thought it was going to be something that would hinder me, being older, especially because year on year it seems like everyone’s looking for the next fire young n*gga. I think being older gave me wisdom, I had the journey, I had already lived through every era of rap. Besides the shit in the 80s, I was hip-hop lover when NWA, Spice 1, MC Eiht, Ice T and all them niggas was winning. I was a hip-hop lover when Biggie Smalls came out, when Onyx, Mobb deep, Jay Z and Nas came out, era after era. Busta Rhymes, DMX, Tupac, when Wu Tang took over and the South started winning. I was around when trap took over, when drill took over”.
“I’m able to take ingredients from every era of rap, that knowledge, those experiences that I was going through simultaneously, and package them. Whilst reflecting on his come up, talk turns to a particular record “Ten/Rya Interlude featuring Key Glock”, with Conway accrediting the dynamism he showcases on the track to his own personal brand of versatility saying, “That song is about me being in Atlanta in the club, standing on couches and popping bottles, smoking an ounce of weed, we got foreign cars outside with the valet, dropped like 200 on the valet, we ordering Waffle House to the club” he reminisces endearingly. “I'm on ten! That’s what I mean, I had the chance to be a part of all of these era’s and that’s why I’m able to make the music I make, by piecing it all together”. Another standout track from the record that proves this further is The Red Moon In Osaka featuring RZA, over which the Wu Tang legend adorns Conway’s opening verse with a spoken word piece about uplifting oneself, raising your own vibration. Speaking on the album's epic conclusion, Conway shares “It’s one of my favourites on the record for sure. I remember hearing the beat and just thinking it felt so cinematic. It pretty much wrote itself. When I was in the booth building out the track I got a download of just wanting Raekwon to be on it dropping jewels, you know what I mean? Just speaking, talking that fly shit like if it was a Wu album, like a Purple Tape, like you know how they would have Papa Wu on the end of their songs, like that. RZA and I always have those sort of conversations when we see each other”.
The track plays out like a self fulfilling prophecy, with Conway inadvertently giving rap’s next generation the advice to rest on the innovations of the rappers who came before them, to seek out the OG’s when they’re looking for guidance artistically, and to not underestimate the value in nostalgia. In his mind, it’s the only way to keep pushing the genre forward, instead of relying on the canon of money, drugs, women and status that contemporary rap music feels so hinged on today. “I don’t think I know of a record that’s been closed that ill” he says with a calm braggadocio.” God don’t make mistakes” Conway continues of the record's ending. He’s right of course, your average rap fan would struggle to think of any record of late that has ended on such a beautiful note. It’s these kinds of juxtapositions between dark and light, the past and the future, the gritty and the sublime, that cement Slant Face Killer as an elevation of Conway’s sound. “I see it like I'm climbing tiers with every record I release” he tells me, before sharing that he’s already “got two unreleased albums ready to go, locked and loaded”. In closing our conversation, and reflecting on the release, I ask Conway if he has one overarching message that he wanted to share with his audience with Slant Face Killer, to which he pauses for dramatic effect before proclaiming; “that I'm the greatest”. The target is locked, the focus is ever on elevation, for Conway The Machine, the finish line is nowhere near in sight.
