Westside Gunn is pushing back after a new round of Griselda rumors hit the timeline. This time, the chatter involves JAŸ-Z, business splits and the long-speculated tension between Griselda’s core trio.
As perComplex, the latest conversation started after Mal claimed on the New Rory & Mal podcast that JAŸ-Z once suggested Gunn give Benny The Butcher and Conway The Machine a piece of Griselda. According to Mal, that alleged business decision is part of what created tension inside the Buffalo crew.
“Something that I knew for a while, but I just never spoke about it publicly … one of the main reasons why there was kind of like, I guess, a split between Griselda was because Westside Gunn didn’t want to give Benny and Conway five percent of Griselda — let them split 10 percent, which is something JAŸ-Z had kind of suggested in a meeting with them,” Mal said. “Gunn said, ‘no.’ He didn’t wanna do that.”
Mal made it clear he still gives Gunn credit for building the machine, but also said Griselda does not hit the same without all three of its core members. “Which to me was shocking when I first heard about it,” he continued. “Now don’t get it twisted, Gunn definitely curated the whole Griselda thing. He got it lit, he got it poppin’, but Griselda is not Griselda without the three of them.”
After the clip started making the rounds on X, formerly Twitter, Gunn caught wind of it and kept his response short.“Everybody wanna go viral so bad sh*t disgusting,” he wrote, adding laughing emojis. For longtime Griselda fans, this is not exactly a new conversation. Rumors about friction between Gunn, Conway The Machine and Benny The Butcher have followed the group for years, especially as each artist has continued building his own lane outside of the original crew dynamic.
Conway previously fueled the bad business chatter when he said he never read his Griselda contract and later realized the paperwork was not in his favor. Gunn later addressed those comments, making it clear he was not trying to do Conway dirty and framing the situation more like business growing pains than some grand betrayal. There have also been rumors about issues between Benny and Conway’s camps, including chatter about an alleged scuffle overseas after a show in Paris. Nothing has ever really been fully settled publicly, but fans have continued to dissect lyrics, interviews and social media posts like they are looking for clues in a case file.
That brings us to Benny’s latest unreleased music, where fans believe he may be addressing some of the tension directly. “I knew you was dissing me and I still told n***as go get your album,” Benny raps in the leaked track. When a fan asked on Instagram if the line was a Conway diss, Benny responded, “Before you ever hear me go at the team I’ll burn one of these outsiders to ashes – Butch.”
That answer did not exactly shut the speculation down, but it did make one thing clear: Benny is not publicly aiming at the Griselda family, at least not before dealing with whoever he considers an outsider. The whole conversation hits different because of what Griselda meant to Hip-Hop over the last decade. Westside Gunn, Conway and Benny helped bring grimy, sample-heavy, luxury street rRp back to the front of the underground at a time when much of Rap was moving in a completely different direction. They made Buffalo feel like a Rap capital, turned limited vinyl drops into events, made cover art and merch part of the experience, and built a world that felt both raw and highly curated.
Their run eventually led Gunn and Conway to Shady Records in 2017, while Benny continued rising with his own Black Soprano Family movement. From projects like Flygod, Reject 2, Tana Talk 3, WWCD and beyond, the trio created a sound and aesthetic that influenced a whole wave of rappers who wanted the beats dusty, the bars sharp and the rollout boutique.
That is why fans still care so much about where things stand between them. Griselda was never just another rap crew. It was a movement built off chemistry, family ties, pain, fashion, wrestling references, coke rap, art-house presentation and Buffalo pride. Whether the latest JAŸ-Z story is accurate or just more podcast smoke, Gunn clearly is not here for the chatter. As for the fans, they will probably keep reading between the lines until all three members are back on wax together again.
