By Alex P80 Parks
While guest features frequently dominate many artists’ albums, true posse cuts with several artists aren’t as common today as they were 15+ years ago. Widowmaker and Trevor Lang sought to change that by bringing together sharp verses from 4 of today’s biggest emcees on one track.
Portland’s Guttah Greybeard and Grant Burgess make up the production duo known as Widowmaker. Deeply Rooted caught up with Guttah to find out how they put these cats together on a track like this.
Guttah Greybeard: “We had the verses from Conway and West for awhile and weren’t sure what was the best way to use them… We were already working with Trevor Lang at the time and he knew we had them and he had wanted to work with us to release something special with those verses. He was the one that really brought everything together. We made the beats and bought the verses from Conway and West, but it was Trevor who really made it all happen.. As for the other emcees, we had been listening to Sauce’s first album and wanted to get him on the track. Trevor is Sauce’s guy so that was no thing there. We had been listening to Al Divino’s shit for a while and wanted to get him the track as well. We saw something special in those guys and obviously wanted to get them on the track. Trevor came up with the title and did all the art, of course. He’s definitely the man in terms of being able to do all that along with the amazing physicals he puts out.”
The title, “Lamy,” refers to the iconic and ever-eccentric French fashion designer, Michele Lamy. In the album artwork, Trevor used photos of Lamy to create an accompanying visual, in which her typical portrayal as witch-like feels almost imminently threatening, as if we are all cursed upon seeing and hearing this joint.
The imminent threat comes not only from the visuals and the beat but also courtesy of the cast of emcees, using their own established styles to get their point(s) across.
Conway The Machine uses his blunt and direct style to flat out, tell it how it is with simply effective rhymes like “I got killers, you got shooters.”
Sauce Heist convinces listeners with his edgy street style, using crazy lines like “ragamuffin, don’t get ya muffin ragged for nuffin.”
Al Divino bullies up the track, leaving the mic dented and bent up with the alliterative lines straight out the gate: “yo, yo… yo.. Henny Handle, Hatori Hanzo, Vanna White On the Van Goh.”
Westside Gunn uses his charismatic flow to persuade even the most stubborn of disbelievers. His verse starts in typical FlyGod fashion with “Ayo, I used to have to take the shank to the shower. The more powder ya sell, the more power.”
Widowmaker lays a menacing piano loop, with dusty drums and thunderous bass on this joint. “Lamy” definitely ends up being one of the hardest cuts of the year, with this cast of elite emcees over a banging beat from Widowmaker. DJ Oz-Roc of Portland’s On One Posse laid the serious scratches heard on the track.
The second single on the limited 7″ Vinyl pairs Widowmaker with Sunz of Man co-founder and Wu-Tang affiliate, Heaven Razah on “Stay Awake.” Heaven Razah struts over the snares and kicks and delivers his commanding rhymes. The piano loop delivers a matter of fact, courtroom vibe for Razah Rubies to lay down his sage advice.
Razah rhymes:
“Cuz I ain’t all caught up in fame.
It’s more deeper than a stage name.
What’s a gun if there’s no aim?
A ricochet to a child’s brain.
We barely make it to the 12th grade
But we can tell you bout this 12 gauge.”
This track is the first off the Heaven Razah X Widowmaker project, coming in the near future.
Both “Lamy” and “Stay Awake” bring some serious talent over hard-hitting, sinister beats.
The super-limited edition vinyls drop Black Friday 2018 at:
Deeply Rooted HipHop 