Westside Gunn is often regarded as generous with his platform — especially as it pertains to letting otherwise slept on figures to shine on his projects. For example, “Banana Yacht” on Hitler Wears Hermès 7 was (more or less) an Estee Nack track.
More recently, he put another MC on via his Flygod Is An Awesome God sequel. However, he intriguingly allowed the feature’s identity to remain a mystery (to those unwilling to dig for answers).
It didn’t take long before some fans began to theorize that mystery voice on “Greatminder” a Sadhugold produced tribute to MF DOOM & Madlib’s “Meat Grinder” was none other than the bubbling Sadhu himself — which, as it turns out was correct. The song was first dropped on the producer’s SoundCloud two years ago to celebrate the birthday of MADVILLAINY (DOOM and Lib’s sole body of work as the duo MADVILLAIN). Its original title was “greatminder (C-147),” and it sported an MF DOOM and Rick & Morty mashup cover.
RELATED: Spin MADCHILLANY, Sadhugold’s chop for chop reimagining of MADVILLAIN’s MADVILLAINY).
“When I first met Westside Gunn, I played that shit by mistake going through beats,” Sadhu revealed to me via Twitter DM. “He was like, ‘What’s that?’
“He even texted me about it weeks after that … he stayed on my head about the track until a few weeks [before the release of Flygod Is An Awesome God 2], when he asked for the stems.”
Unbeknownst to Sadhu — who produced three of the tracks on the LP — West wasn’t interested in rapping on the beat at all, but instead using it in its original form. Even more bewildering to fans, the song was released project post-release with no promotion, replacing what was previously song 12, “Drive-By Love,” featuring Keisha Plum. It was an Easter Egg of epic proportions.
“I always thought he was gonna rap on it, but he was like, ‘Nah I wanna give it wings.'”
Sadhu has racked up a good number of production credits with the Griselda squad and Gunn in particular. He first produced “SaBu” and “Stefflon Don” off of his classic LP Supreme Blientele, and later crafted beats for Hitler Wears Hermès 6, Hitler Wears Hermès 7 and Fly God Is An Awesome God.
Still, this is the first time he’s been able to get bars off on a Griselda project; and for fans of the shadowy producer, it may be the start of a beautiful thing.
“I’ve got some stuff I’ve been sitting on that I’ve always had plans to put out at the right time,” he notes — sharing some snippets with me that I sincerely hope the rest of you get to hear someday. “The stars seem to be aligning.”
Check out “Greatminder” and a playlist of other Sadhugold and Westside Gunn collaborations below. Are you interested in digging through Sadhu’s eclectic and amazing catalog? Click here.
